Sept. 23

Hello my dear wonderful family and friends!!!!!!
So another week has come and gone. And next Monday I will again know
if I will be staying here in Grand Forks or if I will be moving on to
a new area! It's crazy to think that I have served here for 6 months!
I am almost a 3rd of the way done with my mission! Strange!!!! I don't
know what is going to happen. Usually in our mission the longest that
a sister serves in one area is 6 months but I am also training Sister
Arrington and it's a 12 week training program. So I guess we will see!
But people have also had 2 trainers in the past so maybe I will get
transfered! We'll see!!! To be honest I love serving here in Grand
Forks and the people are amazing but I am a little ready to go out and
see another part of the mission!

OH!!!! so exciting news! last Saturday Sister Arrington and I got to
run the color run! it was crazy fun! We ran it with Jerris and Sister
Deem(she is the bishops wife) The company that puts on the race is
from Utah and one of the kids who was working it actually served his
mission here and his last area happened to be Grand Forks! so that was
cool :) I don't have any pictures yet but sister deem and jerris took
tons so they will hopefully e-mail them to us and I will sent some
home so you can see them! We wrote in marker on the back of our
T-shirts mormon.org and on the bottom of my shirt I wrote "ask me
about my church!" :) it was a good way for us to get out in the
community and just let a ton of people see that Mormon missionaries
exist! and that we are normal people! what is really crazy about the
whole thing is that we ran the race at 8 in the morning and we left
the area around 9 30 ran home showered off all the color and made it
to the Elder's baptism by 10. That takes skill if I do say so myself
:) (I am still working on being humble... it's a work in progress....
:) )

Nothing crazy exciting happened this past week really besides the
color run. We had a really good lesson with Dakota Ashes where we read
with her from the Book of Mormon. She said she would read from it and
pray about it! She is one of those investigators who is interested in
the message but it's going to take some time to help her realize the
truth for herself. So we keep praying for her and I know that someday
she will accept the gospel! she is just an amazing girl!!!!

OH I also forgot this past wed. we helped the youth out for their
mutual activity. It was super fun. They were having a missionary prep
night and they had a bunch of different stations set up for them to go
to in 10 min. intervals. They asked us if we would be "potential
investigators" that they had to come and tract into. so we were in a
room and they had to come knock on our door. Each time we were a
different person. Sometimes we were rude and yelled at them and
slammed the door. Other times we acted interested in their message. But
after each time we gave them feed back about what they could do better
and then let them try again. It was a really cool experience and it
helped me realized just how much I really have learned out here in the
mission field. It was a good way to reflect back on all the things I
have learned! One of our investigators Jackie (she is 14) was there at
the activity and it was really cool because at one point we could hear
her talking with some people out in the hall and they were trying to
figure out what to say to us and they were talking about what they
would say about the Book of Mormon. Jackie told them that they needed
to invite the people to read it and pray to know if it was true. Which
is something that we had taught her!!!! it was just amazing to get to
hear that little moment to realized that she really has been listening
to what we have taught to her and her Mom. Her and her Mom are waiting
for her step dad to be able to baptize them and he is a less active
member so he has been meeting with the Bishop and the Bishop has
cleared him to be ready at the end of this year. So hopefully they
will be getting baptized in January!!! which is wonderful. I am super
sad that I won't get to be here for them but I know that if I am here
or not it's the right thing for them to do and it will be a wonderful
day. :)

I always have a mental list of things that I need to write home about
when I come to the library and then when I get here I somehow forget
all of them......

The other night I was talking with my mission president on the phone
because I was having a little bit of a rough time and I couldn't
figure out how to get out of this kind of funk I had been in. And one
of my blessings I got from the Elder's a while ago talked about making
sure that I turned to my mission leaders and it named off the mission
president and his wife specifically. So last week when I was having a
hard time I was prompted to call president anderson. So I did and he
gave me some great advice! he talked about how important it is to work
out in the mornings. Which is something I haven't been horrible at but
I haven't been exactly amazing at it either. So he suggested that I go
to a track in the mornings and run. that way I can run while sister
arrington walks (she's not super athletic which is totally fine! but
it makes going for runs in the morning hard.) He told me I should be
going 5 days a week! so I have taken that advice to heart and I am
going to start running 5 days a week regardless of the weather! I
guess it's time for me to put my bad habits in the past and suck it up
and start living a healthier life style. I never realized how much it
can effect your emotional well being and you stress levels but eating
junk and not getting a good workout in can really make a huge
difference. So wish me luck! we will see how this goes!!!!!  THIS DOES
NOT HOWEVER MEAN THAT YOU CAN'T SEND ME CHOCOALTE OR GOOD TREATS IN
PACKAGES. peanut butter M&M's are always allowed.... maybe just
smaller amounts of junk... I don't know.... it's still  a work in
progress, my healthy lifestyle..... baby steps... :) also I am feeling
tons ands tons better so don't worry about me! plus my birthday is in
a few weeks and that always seems to cheer me up :) but for reals. i
am doing good!! also I am well aware that you all have been trying to
tell me for years that I eat too much junk food. The only reason that
I am evening telling all of you this is because I happen to be all the
way up in North Dakota and so I can't see the I-Told-you-so looks on
your face..... yes you were all right! I should be better :)

Well I think that is all that I had to say this week... as always I
love you all!!! Last night in my prayers I was really thinking about
the things I am thankful for and why I am thankful for them. And it
went from just saying I am thankful for my family to being I am
thankful to have a family where my parents are still happily married
and we never had to deal with divorce. and I am thankful for a home
where the spirit was always there. I am thankful to have always had
the priesthood in my home growing up. I am thankful that I got to see
every single one of my brothers and sisters set that great example for
to by being sealed in the temple. And the more I thought about these
wonderful blessings the more blessings I thought of!! and then this
morning as I was reading from Jesus the Christ (which is AMAZING!!!!!)
A line really stuck out to me about how when much is given to people
much is expected. I just realized that Heavenly Father as given me
some AMAZING blessings in my life. And because He was given me so much
He is going to require much from me. And how knowing the Lord trusts
me and that He is going to give me responsibilities is a blessing in
and of itself! The Lord has confidence in me! It's a crazy thought but
one that I am learning to be true! anyways I do in fact love you all
with all of my heart!!!!!! Keep going this church is true and the Lord
loves us!!!!!!!!

Love always your favorite sister missionary,
Sister Boudreaux

aka Denae :)

Sept 16

I love the pictures of baby Brighton!!! she is BEAUTIFUL!!! I am so
excited for a year from now when I will get to see her :) she will be
at the perfect age to start learning to say Aunt Nae :)

This past week has been crazy! but good :) We had majority of our
appointments fall through (typical) but we had set a faith filled goal
to teach 14 lessons! and we saw many little miracles as random people
we tracted into allowed us into their homes and we were able to teach
the restoration to them. They didn't want us to come back so they
didn't become new investigators but it was amazing that they even let
us in, in the first place! The Lord blessed us to teach 13 lessons
which wasn't quite our goal but was still a great accomplishment. Yes
maybe all our appointments cancelled but the Lord reach out in love
and helped us to still have a successful week. We also were able to
introduce many different people to the gospel! Which is a great thing!
Ya they didn't run jumping into the baptismal font but now they have
at least the start of an understanding about what the LDS church
believes in :) so that was good!

We also had zone conferences and we had Elder Snow who is a member of
the quorum of the 70 come and speak to us! it was AMAZING!!!! so cool
:) It ended up being half of our mission who came to Fargo to see him.
I will send home the picture that they took of all of us with
President and Sister Anderson and Elder and Sister Snow. (I look
really tall in the picture! it was a good self esteem boost haha) The
whole conference talked a lot about how we should use members more in
our missionary efforts and what some good ways to do that are.
Something that Sister Arrington and I have started to do is that
instead of asking members "who do you know that could benefit from
this message of the gospel" (because people are super annoying and
always answer well everyone could use the gospel! not the answer we
were looking for....) so we have changed our question! now we are
asking members who they are working with to share the gospel, who
knows that they are a member of the church? Because let's be honest if
we all take a good look at our lives we can think of friends,
co-workers, neighbors, etc who ya maybe they aren't our best friends
but they are people that we interact with who know that we are LDS! We
can all think of someone we have talked to about the gospel. So our
new motivation is to help members continue to share the gospel with
these people. Sometimes the next step is for their friends to meet
with the missionaries! and sometimes it's just to introduce them to
mormon.org, or invite them to a church activity. but there are PLENTY
of little things that we can do to share the gospel. We have two
families in our ward already who have committed to giving a copy of
the proclamation to the family to their friends! We are excited to
help the ward share the gospel!!!

Other than that I don't really know what else to write about. It's
crazy that this is the start of week 5 of this transfer!!!!! I feel
like it just started and it's almost over! CRAZY!! :) Well I love you
all and I know that this gospel is true! Don't ever doubt it!!! (that
I love you or that the gospel is true... both are very important!!! )
Don't forget your crazy daughter/sister/aunt/friend DENAE!!!!!!
I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!

love your favorite sister missionary,
Sister Boudreaux

Sept 9

My dearest family,
Things are going good out here! I can't believe that we are already
half way through the transfer! Time is going WAY too fast!!!! I have
been here in Grand Forks for 5 months now?! it's crazy!!! but I still
love the ward and the people with all of my heart :)

We were able to meet with both Stacey and Dakota this past week and
they are two of our investigators that I am the most excited about
teaching. Dakota is the one who is a senior in high school. This
wednesday we are going to go and teach her and we are bringing Brianna
Poppe along! so that should be a super strong lesson which I am
excited for. Oh! and Stacey is now officially on date for baptism on
the 12th of Oct. So I can't get transferred at the end of this month or
I will miss it!! :) They are both doing well and I am so thankful that
I have gotten to meet them.

So in the Ensign this month there is an article about a girl who
started out making a list of 100 things that she is thankful for and
then her sister encouraged her to find 1000 things! so she talked with
all of her family about the things that they were thankful for and
with their help she made a list of over 1200 things! so the other day
I started to make my own personal list of things I am thankful for. So
far I am at almost 300 :) but I want to hear what things you are all
thankful for too!! so everyone take time this coming week and write
out a list and send it to me!!!! I am determined to find 1000
things!!!! :) it's really helped me to appreciate all of the small
things in life and to think about very specific things in the gospel
that I am thankful for. I mean their are silly things on my list like
peanut butter and flip flops but then I also have things like knowing
that I am a daughter of God and my eternal family now and in the
future. It's been tons of fun! so get thinking, get writing, and send
them to me! :)

Sister Arrington and I are doing well. We are having more and more
silly funny moments together. I mean this is me we are talking about
here of course there are silly dorky moments :)  The church actually
just came out with this new stress guide which I will be honest when I
first saw it I was like... this is going to be super dumb.... but I
have since repented! I love it! It's been super helpful. It has you
identify different areas of stress that you have in your life and then
you only read about the suggestions for those specific things. So it's
not something that you are supposed to read from cover to cover but
only study the areas that will help you at that specific time in your
life. I think it's amazing :) it's helped our companionship a lot
that's for sure! So the other night (saturday) Sister Arrington and I
decided to have our own little party. So after we got in from teaching
and did our planning for the next day we had an hour before lights out
at 10:30. So we painted our nails, ate candy and chips, and watched
the movie The Testaments. It was great! so much fun :) I just love
being a missionary!!!!!!!!!

Something that I wrote in my journal last night and that I have gained
so far on my mission is how much I appreciate the Sacrament more now
than I ever have before. It's starting to become such an amazing
experience for me. Every week I get to pray and ask for forgiveness
for the mistakes that I know I have made and ask for the strength to
do better in the week to come. I also pray for all of the people that
I have met with in the past week, either less active members,
investigators, or the members of the ward. I especially pray for
those who made the decision to not come to church. As I ask for
forgiveness and pray for others the Sacrament has become one of my
favorite parts of my week! and for sure my favorite part of Sunday.

I am sooooo excited for the baby!!!! I keep telling everyone out here
about her :) I tell everyone out here about my amazing family! People
are of course always shocked that I am the shortest child in my family
and they are in awe when I show them our family picture (well I carry
the picture of all us kids at grandma boudreaux funeral in my
scriptures with me, that one and the one of mom and dad and I when I
opened my mission call) I show you guys off to everyone! :) because of
course my family is the best one out there!!

We are having a zone conference tomorrow (well it's like half of the
mission coming to it) where a member of the 70 is coming to talk to
us! so that should be super amazing! I will write about it next week
in my email home. and we have tons of appointments this week so we
should be busy! it's an exciting time to be a missionary! I am just so
grateful for this opportunity to serve! and I am thankful for all you
back home who love and support me! thanks for all that you do!

Love always, your favorite sister missionary,
Sister Boudreaux
aka your crazy youngest child Denae :)

Sept 3

Sorry about the mix up last week with you not getting the email!
that's super weird.... because I forward my family email on to Lindsey
and Craig and Craig responded back from it so I know that they got it!
strange... oh well! But I am totally fine! sorry this weeks letter is
on tuesday because the Library is closed on labor day.

I always feel like I have a billion things that I want to write home
about and then when I get to the library I can't think of any of
them.....

OH! I did get the package! I loved it thank you!!! the Peanut Butter
M&M's are always appreciated :) and the music is great! we have been
listening to it a ton! we are finally getting settled in as a new
companionship and things have been going well! This past week we were
able to find 5 new investigators!!!!!!! which is pretty exciting! and
not like 5 eh... investigators but 5 people who we really feel like
will listen to the gospel and hopefully accept it!! so we are super
stoked about that.

So last wed. we were supposed to have a meeting with Stacey and we got
there and her son told us that she was asleep...... so we were like
um... ok... so we left and felt super discouraged. but then thursday
night we had a little bit of time before our co-ordination meeting
with our ward mission leader brother brooksby and so we stopped by just
to see if she was home and she totally was! so we were able to have a
lesson with her that went super well. We shared the plan of salvation
and talked about how her family could be together forever. It was
super special and I think she was really touched. She had been to a
temple open house years about and had also seen her nieces and nephews
be baptized so she had questions about both of those things. We
invited her to be baptized and she didn't get a yes! but just had a
bunch of questions about how it happened. So she has been thinking
about it a lot!!! they are really good signs that she is ready for
baptism!!!! we have another appointment with her tomorrow and I am
super excited for it. A member of our ward just moved in next door to
her (she lives on campus in the family housing while she is going to
law school) so we asked the wife of the family from our ward to come
with us to our appointment. We are teaching the gospel of Christ which
is basically the 4th article of faith and hopefully after we go over
all of that with her we will be able to re-invite her to baptism and
get her on date for some time either at the end of this month or early
Oct!!!!!!

We also have started to teach a girl named Dakota who is a senior in
high school right now. We brought two of the laurels from the ward
with us to her lesson last night and it went super well! We set a
return appointment with her for later this week and I am excited to
get to keep teaching her. She is natvie american and grew up catholic.
She's had a pretty rough life so far and I really just feel like the
gospel could really help her and give her the comfort and strength
that she needs. It was awesome to get to bring the girls from the ward
along too because they were able to invite her to young womans on wed.
and she said that she would love to come! so hopefully she will go!!
We started out teaching her Dad but he hasn't really been progressing
but ever since I met Dakota I have wanted to teach her! so when the
opportunity finally presented itself I got up the courage to ask her
if we could meet with her! and she said yes! so hopefully it will
continue to go well!

I don't really know what else to write about. yesterday was super fun
we got to go play volleyball with the elders and a bunch of the young
single adults from our ward. two of our less actives even came and
played! it was great :) if you ever see pictures of me tagged on
instagram the are from jerris. I think she posted one yesterday of a
few of us when we went out to lunch after.

This week will hopefully be a good one! can you believe that today is
my 5 month mark?! that's right my bright smiling face has been away
from home for 5 whole months now!!!!! crazy! time has gone waaaaaaay
too fast! I only have 13 months left! a year from now I will be
getting ready to go home! i dont like to think about it...

Life is good here in grand forks. I still love the people. I still
love to serve. and I think my love for teaching just grows stronger
and stronger every day. The other day I received a blessing (I had
been denying that I needed one because I was totally fine and then one
night we were feeling super lost about what we should do and so I
called my sister training leader who suggested that I get a
blessing.... so I listened to her wise counsel and got one) anyway so
I got a blessing( but don't worry I am doing great!!! I think Heavenly
Father just has some things he needed to tell me and I was just being
stubborn.... so he created a situation for me to get one :) ) and in
it it talked about how my trails I am facing are so the Lord can mold
me. And that my mission is preparing me for the rest of my life. It
was just super comforting to know that the trials that we face in life
always have a meaning to them. and that if we turn to the Lord during
the difficult times He can use our trials to mold us into the people
that He wants us to be. The potential that we have inside each and
every one of us will never be reached in it's full if we try and do it
on our own. If we want to reach our full potential we must put
ourselves in the Lord's hands and let him mold us into something
amazing. It was just a very comforting blessing and gave me a lot of
good guidance and counsel :) The priesthood is just amazing!!!! I am
so thankful for it in my life.

Well I think that is all I have for now. I love you all oodles and
oodles!!! this gospel is true! I know it with all of my heart. I can't
deny the amazing miracles that I have seen in my life and in the lives
of the people that I have come in contact with. Jesus Christ is our
Savior and our Redeemer and I know He knows all of us and cares for us
dearly!! Keep strong!! I LOVE YOU!!!!

Love your favorite sister missionary,
Sister Boudreaux

Aug 26

Well another week has come and gone and here is my wonderful e-mail
home! So my new companions name is Sister Arrington. She is from
Wadsworth, Nevada which is like 30 miles east of Reno. She grew up on
an Indian Reservation but she looks white. :) She is 1/3 Native
American. Her grandfather was a full blooded Native American. She is
quiet so I am working on the balance of talking and making myself stop
so she can speak :) it's good though. The ward here is continuing to
do well. We now have 3 ward missionaries to work with so we are super
excited for that! and two of them are the Poppe's!!!! (Brianna and
Brandon) so we are stoked about that.

last May sister ransom and I started to teach a woman named Stacey I
do believe I wrote home and told you guys about her. But then her life
got crazy and she was NEVER around over the summer. Like literally she
spent half of her summer in Montana with her husband and traveling
everywhere else. BUT this past week we were able to finally have a
lesson with her! and we have another appointment this week and we are
hoping that we will be able to get her on date for baptism for the end
of september. She is so prepared!!!! and she told us that over the
summer then went to church a little here and there in Montana and that
they had read some from the Book of Mormon. Her little girl Frankie
who is 4 LOVES church and wants her to read the Book of Mormon with
her so that's super great!!! When I first met Stacey I just felt like
she was someone who was prepared for the gospel but they timing just
wasn't right then. But I am praying it is the right time now! I want
to see her be baptized!

Other than Stacey we have dropped a lot of our investigators so this
week we are going to work really hard to find some more people to
teach! It should be a crazy but great week :) This past week has in
fact been crazy. It's like out of no where like 5 different people
last week decided to UNLOAD all of their life problems on us.... like
I must just give off some kind of vibe that just makes people want to
tell me things that they don't talk to ANYONE else about. It's been
weird. some times I just want to be like.. um... maybe the bishop
would be a better person to tell these things to.... Maybe it's just a
missionary thing! people see us as religious people and decide that we
are safe to tell all their life problems to! I don't know it's just
been strange! like what do these people want me to do about them? I am
a 20 year old girl!!!! but the gospel of Christ does change people so
we just keep teaching about the Atonement! I may not be able to fix
their problems but I guess I can direct them to the person who can :)


Well I think that is everything I have for this week :) I love you all
and am thankful for all of the wonderful support!!! Mom that is super
exciting that you got out of cub scouts and now get to teach primary.
They gave you the perfect age! :) And Dad fundementals was totally one
of my favorite classes so I am sure that will be fun to teach. Tell
everyone back home I am doing wonderful and that I say Hello! I LOVE
YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love your favorite sister missionary,
Sister Boudreaux

p.s. I want tons of pictures of the new baby once she get's here!!!! I
am super duper excited!! Their are a bunch of cute pregnant woman in
our ward here and I just get so excited when I think of my two new
nieces!!! :) Make sure you give her a kiss from her favorite Aunt
nae!!! :)

pps this picture is Sister Ransom Jerris and I last week right before
sister Ransom got transfered!!!