July 29

Hello dearest family!!!!!!

Things have been going SO great!!!!!! It's crazy to see the many ways that the Lord is blessings us here. We found 4 new investigators again last week and had four investigators come to church!! Besides last week that NEVER happens for us! and this week we already have appointments to meet with most of them! so basically the Lord has been helping us in ways we couldn't have possibly imagined :) OH!! I amost forgot! Brianna Poppe is getting baptized on Aug 17th :) we are super excited for her! It's amazing to see her progression in the gospel. She always has questions for us but no matter what she askes we always have an answer that we can find in the scriptures.

 

So we started to teach this Native American man two weeks ago who was a referral from a Less Active woman that we had been meeting with. The two of them are friends. So we invited her to our lesson with him on Saturday. His name is Adam and we are also teaching his two kids Alexis who is 14 and Dylan who is 13. So jackie (our less active) said she would come with. At the end of the lesson we were going to invite them to come to church and Jackie stepped in and said that she has been struggling to go to church and that she knows she needs to be better at it so so offered to pick the kids up and bring them to church with her the next day. and they came!! Jackie and her son Mathew were there along with Alexis and Dylan. And to our even greater surprise Alexis brought her friend Windyna. Windyna is the daughter of another less active we have been working with named Angel. Windyna got baptized when she was 10 but her family basically hasn't been back to church since. So we were super surprised when she came with them too!! and after church (they stayed for all 3 hours) Dylan told us that he liked it and asked when we were coming back over to their house! so that was our exciting news from Sunday :) the Elders who serve in the Grand Forks 2nd ward had a baptism last night too and that was super great to go to . Baptisms always just give you that spiritual boost that is so important to missionary work. No matter if it's an 8 year old getting baptized for a convert, even if it isn't a convert that we have taught, it's always a special experience.

 

I am glad that you all had so much fun on the family camping trip! Sounds like it was an adventure :) Though in her email to me Dawnielle made a great observation that I am sure it was fun but it couldn't have been TOO fun because neither she or I was there :) and we are the life of the party! hahaha but really I am sure it was great! and I will be honest I don't miss getting all nasty dirty and having to deal with bugs and being bored :) but I did miss all of the wonderful people! (and the dogs of course too) andI loved the pictures! Oh my goodness the kids are getting soooo big!!!!!! I miss them like crazy but I know that my family is blessed for my diligent service. Plus I have pretty much become bestest friends with majority of the children in our ward. Like for reals :) They all give sister ransom and I high fives every sunday and play with us when we have dinner appointments. I know not surprising that I made friends with all of the small children :)

 

This coming month should be a super great one for our district. There are 3 sets of Elders and us in our district (one set in a little branch called the Lakes region, the elders and us here in grand forks and the zone leaders who are in fargo) and we have someone on date for baptism every single weekend in Aug!!! It's exciting to see the people here catch the excitment of missionary work! Over the past few weeks it feels like our ward is really catching the fire. The couple that spoke in church yesterday are both returned missionaries and they were asked to speak on missionary work. it was like the best sacrament meeting EVER! The wife started out by saying that a few days after she got the assignment to speak we had come by her house to drop off our ward mission plan. and so she decided to model her intire talk after the ward mission plan. it was for reals the most amazing talk ever. and then her husband spoke about how we need to love our neighbor and how that is everyone! not just the people we like. It was a super good talk too. So basically church yesterday was really good. These past two weeks have been the best weeks of my mission so far. and it feels like these upcoming ones will just continue to build upon them. It's great because we struggled so much for the first 13 or so weeks out here to find people to teach and to get our ward excited for the work. But we never gave up and now we are seeing the Lord pour out his blessings upon us and upon our ward. It's an amazing experience. I just love being a missionary!!!!!!

 

We also have an investigator who we have been kinda working with who doesn't really know he is investigating the church :) He comes to church with his wife because she decided recently that she wants religion to be a part of her life again (she was baptized pretty young and has never really been active. her name is Trisha Cosgrove... I can't remember if I have ever written home about her. She was the one we have been basically teaching like an investigator. anyway) so his name is Aaron and he comes to church with her every week and recently we have finally made our scheduales work so that he is there when we come over to teach. And he was upfront about how he doesn't want to join the church but then he has TONS of questions for us and he totally contributes to the lessons. So the first time we met with them we talked about prayer and he was like ya I pray and we talked about it's importance. Then the next time we were super sneaky and we brought the restoration DVD and told him we wanted to watch it and talk about how the scriptures influenced Joseph Smith and what happened to him. the whole movie long I was PRAYING that he wouldn't be offended that we basically were telling him the story of Joseph Smith after he was like... I don't really want to learn about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.... but he is a pretty chill guy and at the end of the movie he had TONS of question for us and said that a lot of the things that they say in church make a lot more sense now. He always has super good questions and we can already see his heart being softened to the gosepl. they went out of town for a few weeks to go home to visit family and Trisha joked that she was going to tell his mom that he was converting to the church :) and she told us as we left that they hoped they would see us when they got back! so that is super exciting :) they are they cutest couple ever. Before he knows it Aaron will be baptized! let's just say the Lord (and his misisonaries) work in mysterious ways :) It's been good though because we have been able to commit him to read the bible and pray which we feel like if he really starts doing those things his heart will be softened to come to learn more about the truths of the gospel. So we are excited to keep working with them.

 

I am going to hopefully send home some pictres from some recent adventures. We have been helping this less active Cheyanne restore an old trunk for weeks now and the other day she convinced me to use power tools to help sand. I know it's a scary thought. Denae and power tools. We usually are not friends. but I did it!! and no one even lost any limbs!! or fingers! :) so it was a successful endevor. Then the other picture is from a tour we took of the aviation center they have on campus that they use to train all of the pilots! UND has this amazing pilot program and jerris (the most amazing recent convert on the face of the planet and also our like BFF) is a tour guide there so she took us on a tour and it was super cool!

 

I think that that is all the exciting news that I have this week. Life is great! things are good! I love and miss all of you but know that I am exactly where the Lord wants me to be! Thank you so much for all the love and support! it means the world to me. I don't think I could have had the courage to serve a mission without knowing that I have a wonderful family back home who is supporting me every single step of the way :) stay strong the church is true!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!

 

Love your favorite sister missionary,

Sister Boudreaux 

 

July 22

Hello my dear family!

Things have been good here in Grand Forks! well ya good :) We have had a few rough days and a few incredibly days so it all evens out to be good :) It's amazing how the Lord helps you through the hard times by giving you specific blessings. Story time!

So my companion Sister Ransom had an older brother who passed away. and this past friday was the anniversary of his death. It just so happened that we planned an exchange for that day without even thinking. So she was going to be left here in Grand Forks with a brand new missionary who has only been out for two weeks on the anniversary of her brothers death. Basically the entire time I was driving to Fargo (which is where I went for the exchange) I was just thinking about how I just left my companion on the one day she needed me most!!! But of course Heavenly Father is watching over us and he showed that to us in a miraculous way. So I went down to Fargo and was just doing missionary work down there we had a pretty uneventful night and after our nightly planning session Sister Ransom called us and asked us about our day. So we told her what happened and then she started to tell us about their night. And oh my goodness it was AMAZING! They ended up finding 4 new investigators and 2 SUPER solid potential investigators. and all through tracting!!!!! which for anyone who has served a mission you understand that these things NEVER happen. Since being out here on my mission we have found like 3 investigators tracting before and we have spent HOURS doing it. Most of the time people are nice but they don't really want to hear about your message. Majority of the new investigators that we have found have been through the ward. So it was a miracle!!! and it just strengthened my testimony that Heavenly Father is watching over us. He knew that to help Sister Ransom through this incredibly hard day and situation he would need to give her some help. and he did!!!!!!! then Saturday came along and it was horrible! we had our day perfectly planned out and it just turned into caos! on our way home from Fargo (sister ransom had come down to pick me up and exchange back companions) we get a call from the other set of sisters who serve in Fargo. (back track for a second here sister ransom is the Sister training leader for out zone so she is over all of the sisters here. She is basically just a leadership role who helps them with major issues and goes on exchanges with them to help them grow as missionaries etc.... she has been one since we got here oh and there are two sets up sisters in Fargo and us in Grand Forks and that's the sisters in our zone) so this set calls her and tells her that one of the sisters is having this super strong feeling that she shouldn't be on a mission. which is pretty major. so we spent the rest of our day making phone calls trying to help her and talking with Sister Anderson (president andersons wife) and trying to get to all of our appointments. Basically it was a rough day. So we wake up for church on Sunday and we are like ok we can do this! so We got to church and Heavenly Father blesses us again! We had 5 investigators come to church!!!! which again has NEVER happened for us! It was a great Sunday and we have had multiple people in our ward start to invite non member friends to church and they are really starting to catch the missionary spirit!!!!! so moral of the story is that when hard things come and we are asked to face difficult trials the Lord ALWAYS give us specific blessings to help us through those hard times.

So that was basically the highlights of this past week! things are moving along here in Grand Forks! we love the people we love the work and we love being companions!!!!

I just want everyone to know that I love and miss them!!! but I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am exactly where the Lord wants me to be doing exactly what the Lord wants me to be doing. I feel the strength of your prayers and they help me more than you know! Having a loving supportive family is the greatest blessing a missionary could ask for!

The other day a member asked us what was something we wished we had done to better prepare for a mission. my answer was pretty simple. I wish that I had shared the gospel with my friends better. I wish that I would have invited more people to learn about the church. I wish that I had learned how to share the gospel with others before I became a missionary. That is probably one of my biggest regrets that there were people placed in my life who I could have shared it with and I got scared and never did. So don't be like me!!!!!! if you have a prompting or if you know someone you can invite to learn more about the gospel DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It doesn't have to be some big scary thing! you don't have to invite them to meet with the missionaries right up front. It can be something simple like inviting them to a family home evening, or to come to church, or to do family history, or to attend a ward activity! or maybe its just sharing your testimony of a gospel truth. however you can don't be scared to share the gospel. There is a quote in preach my gospel about how the more we are converted to the gospel and feel the blessings of the atonement in our lives the stronger desire we have to share the gospel with others. So that is my invitation to all of you wonderful family members and friends! Don't be scared!!! Share the Gospel :)

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!! and I know that you are supporting me and like I said that is a great blessing and comfort to me. Keep being strong! this gospel is true I know it with all of my heart and soul

Love always your favorite sister missionary,

Sister Boudreaux

July 15

HELLO!!!!

things are going great here in Grand Forks. Not much to really report on. in fact I am sitting here pretty much not remembering anything that I wanted to write home about........ I always thing throughout the week of things that I want to tell you and then I get to the library and it all like flies out of my head.....hmmm..... I guess this past week has been a pretty slow one. but we got to work a lot on our ward mission plan. Which is pretty exciting. We worked with our bishop to write out a plan that the ward could use to help them in their missionary efforts. and we wanted it to be super simple so that people would actually follow it. So it can be explained in 4 basic words. UNITE, PRAY, SERVE, AND INVITE. we wanted the ward to unite with the full time missionaries, pray for missionary experiences, serve in their callings and doing home and visiting teaching, and invite a non member to act and learn more about the church at least once a month. It's simple but we feel that if they ward will take hold of it and really do those four simple things that miracles can come.

OH! I guess I did get a ton of mail this past week and that was super great! I got the cute letter Des sent and I also heard from two of my roommates and Lindsey's Mom :) so that was nice. I love getting letters! it's super fun. Emails are great but getting mail just like makes my day! We get to email only on mondays so it's great to come and sit and read about what is going on at home but when you get a hand written letter during the week it's like a surprise! and a really good boost :) So that was great to get those this past week.

I guess I am just SUPER boring today but I honestly don't know what else to write about..... Brianna Poppe (our golden investigator) is doing well. She is out of town for a week or so but when she gets back we will hopefully help her pick a day in Aug. to get baptized.

The ward here is doing great! they take super great care of us. Their is one family in particular that we just LOVE with all of our hearts. They are the Rose family and they live out on the air force base. They feed us at least 2 times  a month sometimes more. They have a 5 year old boy and girls age 3 and almost 2. then she is pregnant with another little boy who is due in the greatest month ever aka october. They are just sooo great! we love them. Then there are a lot of other families who take care of us too. The grand forks 1st ward loves their sister missionaries!! and we love them!!! :)

 

the other good news is that I have successfully filled an ENTIRE journal already as a missionary! so someday when I am home you can read it and see what I did EVERY SINGLE DAY! because I haven't missed writing a single day! I am pretty proud of myself on that one because before my mission journal writing was like the bain of my existance...... I want to have journals that someday my children can go back through and read about my mission :) and of course my family when I get home! plus they are pretty entertaining if I do say so myself. they have a lot more of the funny things that have happened on my mission inside of them :)

I guess I have one good spritual experience from last week to share. The other day we were praying and trying to decide what to do and I was sitting their just like waiting for something to come! because we had literally this past week tried EVERY single person we could. Every former investigator, every potential investigator, every current investigator. literally everyone! so we were praying to know what to do with our time. and I was sitting there just waiting for someone or somewhere to come to me(probably not as patiently as I should have been....) when all of a sudden I just felt the words "Be still and know that I am God" It was a great reminder that sometimes to recieve answers and sometimes as we are doing our best the serve the Lord we need to take time to slow down. To know that this is the work of the Lord and it will move forward in His time, in His way. It was a great reminder for me that is for sure!! I felt His love and know that He is with me every single step of the way.

 

Well I had better go but I love you all dearly!! This church is true!!! and I love serving my Savior in this wonderful labor of love!!! Keep smiling!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

love your favorite sister missionary,

Sister Boudreaux

July 8

hello!!!!!

This past week has been a crazy stressful one but a GREAT one too!! Saturday Kaedyn was baptized and it was an amazing experience for sure! It was great to see someone that I had taught decide to make those special covenants with God. We also had transfer calls this past weekend and great news!!! Sister Ransom and I get to stay here in Grand Forks of for 6 more weeks! Which is a miracle in and of itself. We are literally like the only companionship that isn't training (because I am officially done being trained :) ) that didn't change. We both had been praying really hard that we would get to stay together for one more transfer. Basically I am pretty sure this will be one of if not the best companionships that I will have on my mission. We even had all of our investigators praying that we would get to stay together. :) Because our one miracle investigator Brianna is hopefully getting baptized in the first part of Aug!!! which is right when this new transfer will end. And we both really want to be here for her when that happens. So we were stoked that we get to stay here. Life is basically great here. Stressful but well worth it.

 

Other than Kaedyn's baptism this past week has just been a typical week for us. We work, sleep, eat, and teach! Just living the dream! But for reals I love being a missionary sooooo much!! Kaedyn's little sister is 7 and her name is Caisey and she is so adorable. But she has been super sad because she doesn't get to be baptized like her big brother yet because she isn't 8.She told her Mom that it wasn't fair because she met with the missionaries too! Basically Chelsea their mom spoke at Kaedyn's baptism and the reason that she made Kaedyn wait and meet with the missionaries is because when he was 8 he couldn't really tell her why he wanted to be baptized and she wanted him to know for sure that it was the right thing to do before he made that covenant with God. So hence our meetings with them! Which were amazing and I have grown to love their family with all of my heart. I am super sad because they are leaving this coming week to move back to Utah while their dad deploys to Korea for a year (they are an Air Force family) So we will miss them dearly! She should hopefully be emailing us pictures from the baptism soon and then I will send them home for everyone to see. Basically I look like a giant because they are all a super short family. Sister Ransom fit in with them perfectly I just look huge :) Anyway I got off subject there for a second. I mentioned Caisey because she bore her testimony in church on Sunday (with help from her Mom) and she was like I am glad Kaedyn could get baptized because he is 8 years old. (her moms like Kaedyn is 9) then she was like oh I am glad Kaedyn could get baptized because he is 9 years old. :) It was the sweetest little testimony I have ever heard! She is adorable and Sister Ransom is super excited because a year from now she will be back home in Utah and will hopefully get to go to Caisey's baptism.

 

I can't think of anything else exciting to share. the 4th of July was pretty boring. We were going to try and go street contact some with all the towns things that they had going on but we drove over to them and Sister Ransom was like "it looks like Babylon out there!" needless to say we felt the spirit tell us that it wasn't such a great idea. So we took ourselves out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner :) and then we had to go to sleep before the fireworks so basically it was like a way boring day haha :)

 

I am going to attempt to attach a few photos to this email so you can see at least a bit of the things that I have been talking about for the past few weeks :)

I love you all with ALL OF MY HEART!!!! this church is in fact the true church of Christ on the earth today! stay strong! share your testimonies! and Love the Lord!

Love your favorite sister missionary,

Sister Boudreaux

July 1

oh hello,

This past week has been CRAZY! but great! and Kaedyn's Baptism is this Saturday! so we are super busy getting ready for that :) We don't have any fun plans for the 4th of July as of right now but I am sure something will come up. We tend to make things up as we go. This Saturday is also transfer calls :( and I am super not excited for that. But we shall see how things go. Next Monday I might be writing to tell you I am off to some other location!

So cool story/miracle of the week! So Sister Ransom and I have been working INCREDIBLY hard this past few weeks and all of our investigators besides Kaedyn have been pretty wishywashy and we just can't find people to teach. It's been a real struggle but we have just been working hard and trusting in the Lord. Then a week ago Sunday this cute new couple moved into our ward from Minnesota. We introduced ourselves to them and they came to the Gospel Principles class that we teach and then she came and sat by us in Relief Society. We found out that she is a non-member and they just got marred a few weeks ago. So all week they were on our minds but we didn't want her to feel like we only wanted to come over and meet with them once we found out she was a non-member. But the prompting was super strong so we called her and texted her and she was like I am so glad you contacted me! and she invited us over for dinner on Friday night. So we went over and talked with them. Their names are Brandon and Brianna Poppe and they both graduated the same year as me. He is in the air force and they will only be here for about 6 months. We shared the Restoration with them because that is what we have been sharing with all of the members when we have dinner appointments. She told us that she had been meeting with the missionaries back home a few times and she thought that we had contacted her because they had send us her information. We told her Nope! we just listened to the promptings of the spirit. We invited her to be baptized and she told us yes! that she had been reading the Book of Mormon and she knows that it is true and she's ready to be baptized!!!!!!!!! so we are meeting with her on Tuesday to help her set a date which will most likely be sometime in Aug. So basically we just have to teach her all of the lessons. Her husband and his family have helped her a ton and they really should get all of the credit for her coming into the church.It's just an amazing example of how the Lord blesses us for our hard work but that we must always remember that it's in his time. That the miracles come after the trial of our faith.

I don't know what else to say. That was like the exciting part of our week. Oh! I guess we also did this fun panel of missionaries at Youth Conference. The stake got permission to have youth conference on the Air Force Base and they asked sister ransom and I and then the Zone leaders Elder Burton and Elder Cunningham if we would do a workshop thing. So we just answered the youths questions about missionary work. It was tons of fun! Then we also got out to a few of the small towns (the sweetest older couple volunteered to drive us around last saturday like all day) and so we visited a ton of less active members. There are a few who live on farms so we got to see a bunch of different animals. One of them have miniature ponies and the are the CUTEST things I have EVER seen! so adorable. One of them is really small and they call him tiny tim :) We also saw some goats, chickens, cows,  horses, cats, and dogs :) it was super fun. we loved it. Sister Ransom now wants to marry a cowboy and have horses. I still want to live in the city and be far away from bugs and dirt :)

We also went and played volleyball and basketball this morning at the church with the Elders and then Jerris who is a recent convert YSA. She is basically my favorite person on the face of the planet. I don't know if I have mentioned her in any of my previous emails but for reals I freaking love the girl. She is amazing. She got baptized last march on the same day that I gave my farewell talk! her boyfriend is currently serving a mission in Washington D.C. she will most likely get married before I get home so Sister Ransom is going to go to their wedding with a picture of me and take pictures with it and send them to me so that I can feel like I was there :)

I think that is all that I have to say from this past week. Things are good and they are busy! I love you all oodles and oodles!!!!

Love your favorite sister missionary,

Sister Boudreaux