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

April 22

Hey!!!!!!

I have been thinking allllll week about what I wanted to say to you guys! it's been crazy out here but I am LOVING it! :) My companion's name is Sister Ransom she is from Orem Utah and we get along really really well. Lot's of laughter in this companionship. She is 22 and has been serving for 9 months now. We are opening a new area in Grand Forks, North Dakota. It's up in the right hand corner of the state, about an hour north of Fargo. It's actually right on the boarder of Minnesota. In fact the East Grand Forks is the part of the city that is in Minnesota. (well it's a different city but really the same city if that makes any sense) They just split the ward here so that there are two wards now. There is a set of Elders who are serve on the second ward and we serve in the first. Our ward covers the west half of the city and like a zillion little towns in the surrounding area. Some of the active church memebers drive over 80 miles to church each sunday. and I used to complain about having to drive 45 min. to the St. George temple when I was in college! It's given me a bit of perspective :)

Because we are opening this new area a lot of our work this past week has been planning and planning and planning. We got a list of the member from the bishop and like half of the people on the list he didn't even know who they were so we have been trying to track a few of them down. We had over 25 of the phone numbers we tried to call come back as disconnected. But we also met a lot of the members here in Grand Forks. The ward here is amazing. They are super helpful and way friendly. The YSA's for the area are assigned to be in our area. North Dakota University is here as well (at least I think that is the one.....) They are a part of SUU's conference! We our area actually covers the University so that should be cool. We also have an air force base as a part of our area. We went out last Thursday and had dinner with one of the families there. We actually have a few part memeber and less active families who live on base that we will get to work with, so that has been cool. We actually have dinner out there tomorrow night!

My companion (whom I for reals get along with amazingly!) is a Sister Training leader which is a brand new calling that just got announced. It's kinda like a female zone leader I guess. she is over all of the sisters in our zone. Which means that once a month she has to go back to Rapid city to got to a big important meeting. There is another Sister Traingin Leader in Bismark so this coming week when they go to this meeting I will be getting left in Bismark with the other sister's companion for a few days. So maybe I will get to see the temple!

Oh my goodness I almost forgot to tell you about the transfer train! So because the mission is in fact soooo massivly HUGE they do this thing called the transfer train. And because they have had such an increase in missionaries they actually have to have 2 of them now. They are 15 passenger vans. The one I was in started in Rapid City and went from there across the Sioux Falls, and then up into North Dakota to Fargo (that is where I got dropped off) and across the Bismark (they stayed the night there) and then back down into Rapid City again. We then drove up to Grand Forks from Fargo. In all it was about a 12 hour long car drive. Oh and half of the mission is in a different time zone. So I am an hour later than you guys. It was really funny because it would have taken me the same amount of time to drive from Rapid City back home to American Fork as it did to get out to my first area :) The second transfer train does the exact same route just in the opposite direction. And all along the way they drop people off and pick people up. and to make it even better that is only the North and South Dakota transfer trains. They also have one that goes around Wyoming the day before the new missionaries come to pick up all the people getting transfered to the Dakota's and then it goes out again the day after the Dakota's transfer train to drop off all the people who had been in the dakota's that got transfered over to wyoming. It's pretty complicated and I just hope I get to stay up here for a while so I don't have to get back onto that van :)

You will all be pleased to know that Grand Forks is supposibly the second coldest city in the United States. It snowed twice since we have been here. People keep telling us that spring is supposed to be here but we don't know if we believe them or not :) but it's actually supposed to be an incredibly pretty city once spring does finally come. There has been a bit of snow melt but they are pretty prepared for it up here so we shouldn't expect flooding. Oh and our apartment is REALLY nice. It's big enough that they could put a second set of missionaries in it if they wanted or needed to. We actually have two bathrooms so we each get our own :) Sister Ransom told me that basically nothing else the rest of my mission will compare to this apartment.

Well I don't know what else to write about! I feel like I just wrote you all a novel anyway :) I love and miss you all! Oh and we got a new investigator this past Satruday so I will keep you all updatedon that I guess as the weeks go on. Tell everyone (ward, basketball girls, friends, family etc) that I say HI and that I am doing great out here!!! I know for a fact that this is exactly where Heavenly Father wants me to be right now. My companion and I have been talking a lot recently and just talking about how this age change is not only helping move the work forward but that it is creating almost a new standard where many children will be able to grow up in families where both the mother and the father served missions. and how much of a strength that will be to the home in this on going battle against Satan and the world. I know this church is true with ALL of my heart and I know that Heavenly Father is watching over me and He is watching over all of you as well!!!!! I feel as if our family is the greatest blessing Heavenly Father has given me up to this point in my life and I want you all to know how much I love you!!! Don't forget your favorite baby sister, your crazy Aunt Nae, or the coolest smartest Child of the Boudreaux Home! :) Because I am thinking about and praying for the guys everyday!

love you all!!!!!!!!

Love your favorite Sister Missionary,

Sister Boudreaux

 

Arrived in South Dakota

Denae arrived safely in South Dakota on Monday April 15th. She was in the MTC in Provo for 12 days.

Well this is the only post that I will actually be putting up here on my own. From here on out it will be my Mom (hopefully if she remember how to do it once I show her) posting my weekly email updates for everyone!If she doesn't remember then maybe one of my great older sisters will come to the rescue and help her out :)  I report to the MTC this Wed. and I am crazy excited!!! I have already packed majority of my stuff. And it's been a bit of a struggle. At first I was like 3 bags? ya I can totally get all of my stuff in 3 bags! ya..... no.... I can't. I need like 7 bags to fit all of my stuff in. It's a real issue.

This past week I have said many goodbye's and they were all extremly hard but I know that I am doing the right thing. I know with all my heart that the Lord will bless the people that I love as I serve him faithfully. This past week has been incredibly strange too. Because part of me is like CRAZY excited to finally be leaving! I have been waiting to go on my mission since like.... last Oct. when the age change came. But then the other part of my is like ready to break down in tears any minute from the thought of not seeing the people that I love for the next 18 months. It's like my brain can't decide how it feels. It's an inner struggle.

I know this has been short but I think that this is all I have to say for the moment! Stay strong. Know the church is true and Heavenly Father loves you!!! See you all in 18 :)

Sister Boudreaux