June 24th letter & pics from Sister Randall

Hello Friends and family!

This week has been a week of many miracles (and tears... I'll explain later). This week we had the opportunity to attend the Kansas City Temple before it is no longer a part of our mission. :( What a wonderful day. I don't know if you guys know much about the temple but a couple of cool facts, the theme is the olive branch and there is a BEAUTIFUL stained glass olive tree behind the recommend desk, and some of the wood used to build the alters and what not was taken from Adam Ondi Ahman, how cool is that?!  The temple was so wonderful. I was able to participate in an endowment session and those that didn't fit got to do sealings. After the session we all met in the celestial room where President Keyes and Sister Keyes greeted us with hugs and handshakes. We sat quietly in there taking in the beauty of it all. While I was in there is was thinking about how this is what it is going to be like on a small scale when we meet our Heavenly Father and Mother. The love was overwhelming. After the temple we went over to the Liberty Stake Center and had a Zone Conference. It was all tears from the moment we walked in. The sisters from the visitors center were there with Elder Brenchly (The former MTC choir director) They began by singing the new Kansas Wichita Mission song. It is so beautiful we were able to then sing it with them tears and all. Then they sang "God be with you till we meet again." More tears... The new assistants bore their testimonies. It is so great to hear young men bear their testimonies about the Savior and missionary work. They are going to be amazing. Sister Keyes got up and tried to talk to us through tears. It was so cute when she got up there she grabbed the tissue boxes from both sides of the podium, slammed them on the podium and said "I'm going to need these!" It has been so hard to see them cry. PresidentKeyes bore his testimony and at the end stated, "If this is what it feels like to be released as a mission president, then I want nothing to do with it!" It broke my heart in two. At the end we sung "God be with you till we meet again." There wasn't a dry eye in there. On the last chorus we all began to stand up. What a powerful experience. If it weren't for the Elders that last verse wouldn't have been sung. The sisters cry too much :) It was a beautiful experience that i will never forget.

On to miracles this week we found people that were prepared! We found a new investigator while looking for a less active member. She is wonderful we taught her the first lesson and when we asked her what it would mean to her if these things were true she said that she already knows they are true! She is wonderful and we can't wait to continue to teach her. The other miracle we have seen this week was on Friday night. It was near the end of the night and we were going to visit a former investigator in a trailer park. When we got to her trailer Sister Beus and I both felt like we shouldn't visit her. So we continued walking down the road towards another potential. On our way a man was getting ready to get into his car when we said hello to him. He asked us what we were doing and we told him we were missionaries and we were going to talk to someone that lived close by. He asked us how come we weren't coming to talk to him. We were stopped in our tracks and told him we were! We got to talk to him about his life and his family who just immigrated from Nigeria 9 months ago. He has 4 children and came to the USA to give his children a better education. His faith in God is SO strong! He asked us if we had a pamphlet or something to give to him. We left him with a Plan of Salvation one and our phone number. He said he would read it and call us if he had any questions. The next day he called and said he had some questions and would like to meet with us! We feel so blessed to have met him and his family and can't wait to begin teaching him the restored gospel!

I'm doing SO great here in Lawrence! I finally feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be and that I'm doing some good. Missionary work is hard but the reward far exceeds the difficulties! Next week President Bell will be here and I will officially be a part of the Kansas Wichita Mission. I attached a picture of President Bell and his wife.

 He looks like a lot of fun. He's a retired colonel in the United States Air Force. I'm really excited to meet him and his wife. We got to tour the new mission home and office on Tuesday morning. That home is beautiful! I wish we had time to take pictures but the whole morning was a blur. 

But this week has been so good! I hope you all got to watch the special broadcast on missionary work and were inspired to do more member missionary work! It is amazing how little you have to look for opportunities to share the gospel. Missionaries need your help finding people to teach, knocking doors just isn't cutting it anymore! :) If you didn't get to watch it it's online and you should. :) My 3 favorite things about this gospel is the work the youth do, The Book of Mormon, and that we have a prophet on the earth today that leads and guides us. What a blessing from God that is! I hope this email finds you well and that you guys are having a wonderful summer!

Take Care,

Sister Randall

June 17th letter from Sister Randall

D

ear Friends and Family,

This week has been so great! I really am so much happier.

 Sister Beus is amazing! We get along really well and work well together as well. I finally passed off my lessons so now i can drive! It's going to be weird driving again seeing that it's been nearly 4 months since I've been behind the wheel. 4 months, can you believe it? It really doesn't feel like it's been that long. I don't have much to write about this week except one miracle story.

Sister Beus and I were waiting at the bus stop and i handed the phone to her so she could make a few calls while we waited. (I usually keep the phone because Sister Beus' bag is a black hole) We got on the bus and got to talking with people and i thought nothing of the phone. We went to our dinner appointment and then to a recent converts home. She didn't answer so i told Sister Beus to call her. She looked in her bag for a little bit and couldn't find it. Yup we lost the phone... We called the family that we had dinner with and they couldn't find it. So the only other option was the bus station. We called them the next morning and they hadn't seen it. I got a feeling that we should call our phone. Not really knowing why because it was on complete silent mode and was probably lying on the bus floor. Sister Beus called it and we got the voice mail. Only it said "hi this is Mark leave a message." My first thought was great someone stole our phone and changed the voice mail already. Then she just happened to look in her old planner where she had written our phone number down. 2 yes 2 numbers had been switched! She had been giving the wrong number out for almost 3 weeks! What a blessing it was to have lost the phone no matter how much stress it caused me :) We found the phone later at the bus station and found 2 potential investigators riding the bus that day. The Lord sure does work in mysterious ways!

I don't have much else to say... The work is going great in Lawrence, KS. The ward is amazing. Sister Beus is amazing. Missionary work is amazing. It took long enough but I think I can honestly say that I love being a missionary now. Keep up the hard work back home and keep cool this summer!

With lots of love,

Sister Randall

June 10th letter & pics from Sister Randall

This week has been so great!! There really hasn't been anything special going on, it's just been a positive week. Sister Beus is so great we have connected really well. (not as much as Sister Wood and I did, but still pretty good) We have a lot of things in common. It's been really good.

The work was a little slow going at first as we both are pretty new to the area. But I've got a lot of it figured out now so things are going smoother. Now if we only had a car... but i will pass off my last lesson on Friday and we will get a car every other week after that. But we are getting a lot of exercise and a good tan (farmers tan) Sister Beus and I took pictures last night of our awesome tan lines to compare them too at the end of the summer. They should be pretty great.

We were out tracting on Saturday and ran into a guy named Jason. We were looking for a former investigator who apparently had moved. He just returned from Iraq and is having a hard time connecting with his kids again and really liked what we had to say about families.  But anyways we were talking to Jason and shared a run down version of the Restoration and asked if we could meet with him again. He said yes and we set up an appointment to meet with him on Saturday. We feel so blessed to have found him and can't wait to begin teaching him.

The ward is super great here. Everyone is so willing to help us out with food and rides. We've only had to cook dinner once here. So that has been great. Although the food isn't quite as good (although still delicious just not as calorie/carb packed) as Albany it's been super good because I'm not gaining weight anymore. :) 

Oh something exciting, We are having a special Zone Conference with all of those missionaries that will be in the Kansas, Wichita mission and June 18th and President Keyes got special permission from Salt Lake to go to the temple that day as well. I'm so excited to be able to go to the temple again and to finally get to see the inside of the Kansas City Temple. Especially because it is the same set up as Payson. So it will be kind of a preview for me for when i get back. Can you believe that when I get home we will have 3 Temples within 20 minutes from home? How blessed are we to live in such a wonderful area where going to the temple doesn't have to take the whole weekend or longer like it is for most. I know i took advantage of that when i was at home, but i hope now that i see the dedication of other faithful members that i will continue to be more grateful for the blessings we have as members in Utah.

I don't really know what else to say. Everything is going great here. I love my new area. I love the people. I love my companion. And most importantly I love My Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ. I'm so grateful for all of the things I have been blessed with especially for the love and support from all of my friends and family. I appreciate the prayers in my behalf they have helped me through many good and bad times.

Hope you all are having a great summer and look forward to hearing from you all soon.

-Sister Randall

June 2nd letter and pics from Sister Randall

Wow has this week been a whirlwind! I don't even really know where to start... We had a great pday on Monday shopping in St. Joe. It's been so weird to be so far from everything. We have to drive an hour and a half to get to even a Target. But it's been fun being out in the country. I really do love Albany and the people here have become like family to me. When i come back to my mission Albany is definitely on my list.

Tuesday night was the night we got our transfer roster. Sister Grange and I were both expecting her to be transferred because she is Spanish speaking and a visitor center sister. Well predicting transfers is crazy. We were listening to the call and heard, "In Albany, Sister Grange and Sister Hyer." I think i started crying when i found out i was leaving. But on Thursday i got transferred to Lawrence, KS. Hometown of Kansas University. I will be in the new Kansas Wichita mission, but I'm super excited about it. It's going to be hard to leave President and Sister Keyes but I'm excited to meet President Bell.

 Lawrence is nothing like Albany, it's HUGE! We have 4 wards here! I'm in Lawrence 2nd ward right now and I'm loving it! My new companion is Sister Beus. She is from Treemonton? Utah. But she went to BYU for a semester before coming on a mission. Crazy story, she's friend with McKay Bowcut, and David Bates! It's kinda crazy how small of a world we live in. Sister Beus is a visa waiter. She is going to Brazil! Oh ya and I'm training... Sister Beus has been out in the field for 5 weeks... The Lord must have a lot of faith in me.

One of our investigators furry friends.  Looks like Sophie only a little more poodle in her.

Sister Grange

Before the storm.

After the storm.  "The weather has been crazy here but we are safe."

God's beauty

Something really cool happened to me yesterday though. I was having a really rough day emotionally and was really close to calling President Keyes and telling him i wanted to come home. I never did call though and i soon found out why. At Church on Sunday we were talking to a less active woman that said she has wanted to invite her friend to meet the missionaries but there has been too much change and no stability in the missionaries here that she has been hesitant. Then again we talked with another member and heard a similar story. I now know that i am in this area to provide someone that the ward members can trust with their friends. I have no intention of coming home now. How could you when you know that there are members out there just waiting to share the gospel with their friends? Thank you all so much for you encouraging words they have kept me on my mission while i figure out my purpose and why I'm here. 

I love you all so much and love hearing from you. Keep writing  :)

With lots of love,

Sister Randall

May 27th letter from Sister Randall

Dear Family and Friends,

Life is pretty good in Albany. I’m a bit short on time today however because we spent the day in St. Joseph shopping and passing off my lesson. As missionaries we are required to memorize the lessons in Preach My Gospel and pass them off to our leaders. So we went to Culver’s with the Elders, got lunch, and passed off my lesson hallelou! 3 down 2 more to go. I’ve really been struggling to memorize them lately my attention span is about that of a nat, must be the stress. Boy is missionary work hard! Hard but rewarding.

Speaking of rewarding. We found 2 new investigators this week!! One is  a referral from some Mormon boys up here selling DirecTV. She isn’t a super solid investigator at this point but we have only met with her once. She has two really cute boys, a 2 year old and a 13 year old. We are hoping to see her at church this week plus we are going to go back on Friday and teach her the restoration. Our other investigator’s name is "T". "T" is "R"’s (our less active that is coming back to church) best friend. It was so cool meeting with her. When we first got there she was excited to meet us but made sure that we knew she wasn’t interested in joining she just wanted to meet the girls helping her best friend out. We taught her the restoration and "R" was able to share her testimony really powerfully. Afterwards we asked her to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. She said yes! Then we asked her if she came to know these things were true if she would be baptized, again she said yes! I guess the best thing about the lesson was to see her take a 180. She wasn’t interested at all in the beginning and now she is reading and praying about what we taught her!

                Not much else going on up in the middle of nowhere. Transfers are coming up and I know that Sister Grange and I are both looking forward to it. She is a wonderful person but we are not meant to work together, our personalities just don’t mesh very well. But we will find out tomorrow night whether or not one of us is leaving.

                Church attendance is up right now. Which is so great! We don’t have any investigators coming to Church right now but we have so many less actives returning that we haven’t seen in quite a while. It is so nice to see all of our work doing some good in the Branch.

                Well I love you all and look forward to hearing from you soon! Hugs and Kisses all around.

-Sister Randall

May 20th letter from Sister Randall

Can you believe that it's been 3 months since I've been home!? It's so crazy to think that I've completed a sixth of my mission already.

Monday was a ton of fun...but super crazy again. I'm grateful for the things that we were able to do but I'm really glad we are laying low today. It's been a little too crazy for me to keep up without my down time on Monday's. We've been visiting a lot with a less active member who i just realized is as old as my mom :) It's funny how as you age age doesn't matter as much. We've become really great friends with Wendy and love going and reading scriptures with her. It's turned into a weekly thing now so it's great. Another great thing that has happened is Ruth is reactivated! She has been to church 2 times in a row now, been to two church activities, and has asked her friend to meet with us! We are so proud of the progress our members in Albany are making and can't wait to see them grow more and more.

Albany has officially hit summer... Tuesday it was 97 degree's out side and Saturday it was 105 degree's couple that with the humidity and you have hot hot hot! We are spending a lot of time tracting now. Because it has warmed up more people are outside and willing to talk with us. On Saturday we were tracting out in the country part of Albany when we knocked on a woman's door named Vicki. Vicki has been prepared for the gospel. She has a strong relationship with her Father in Heaven, she knows how she receives answers to her prayers, and she has recently lost her mother. We ended up spending 3 hours with her discussing gospel principles with her. It was funny I don't know if we really taught her anything because she already knows a lot of our basic doctrine is true. We are so grateful to have found Vicki and we can't wait to meet with her again tonight and invite her to baptism!

Saturday night we had a branch BBQ that the Senior Sisters put together. These last few weeks we have been individually inviting many of the less active members. Our hard work sure paid off! we had a really great turn out. We had a few less active families that no ones seen in a long time show up. We even had a few part member families show up with their non member spouse. It was a lot of fun and really great to see so many people come out to the activity.

Yesterday we had a great day at church. The Relief Society lesson was on temples and family history work. I wish as missionaries we could do family history work and take the names to the temple. I wish we were able to attend the temple more often as missionaries. Oh how I long for that peace right now that comes only from being in the holy temples of the Lord. It really saddens me to think of how many people back home don't take advantage of the temple being so close to home. On the other hand I love seeing the dedication of the people out here. We have one couple that drives to the Kansas City Temple (about a 2 and a half hour drive) every week to be temple workers.  Yesterday we went to the Gardner's for dinner. Their house is crazy but we love it there We were able to get into a great conversation with them about why they aren't coming to church and to resolve some of their concerns. I really hope that they got what we were saying and have that desire to return to church. At about 7:45 last night while we were there we heard thunder and decided we better head home. There had been a lot of talk about a possible tornado yesterday and the sky was getting pretty sketchy looking. It began raining on our way home and only got worse after we got home. There was also talk of baseball sized hail coming with the storm so we parked Morris (our car) half way under the porch so the windshield was protected. I took a picture of it but i forgot my camera so I'll send it with next weeks letter. It was pretty funny. It was pretty funny because of how Sister Grange parked we couldn't get out of the front car doors so we had to climb in the back and run  out from there. I was in the rain for maybe 5 seconds and when i got inside i had to change because i was soaked. Hooray for crazy adventures!

Well things are going great in Albany, i love serving the Lord and can't wait to hear back from you all!

Take luck!, take care of the luck... (look it up :)

-Sister Randall