Monday, December 23rd 2013: Do as He would do. Love as He would love.

This week was great!
We are teaching this young man Freddy, he is awesome! He has been reading the Book Of Mormon very steadily and enjoying it, we met with him this week and taught the plan of salvation, he enjoyed it and at the end of the conversation we got on the topic of jeeps and cars, and he has a Nissan Skyline that he takes to the SEMA show is Vegas, it was really cool to be able to make a connection with him and I feel like he thinks we are a little bit more on the normal side now, rather than just strange girls that wear skirts everywhere and can’t be anywhere alone with a boy! hahah we had a hard time meeting with him at first because he is a single male, but we meet at his friends house who is a member, and it works out really well!! :]
We also began teaching this young man David this week, he is really cool and is unsure where it has come from but has said he is getting a random curiosity for the Book of Mormon, so that was cool. Our lesson went really well and we brought Hannah with us, Hannah has been a member for about a month now so it was really cool to see her bear her testimony to him! They are both progressing really well! We have been out caroling every night this week and people LOVE it!!!! They are so much nicer to us at the doorstep than usual and it really gives them a chance to feel the true meaning of Christmas! So I have really loved that, even though I now have a cold and I raspy voice, it is for a good cause!! We moved 3 people this week; I can’t imagine the stress of moving a week before Christmas but hey, to each their own! It felt good to do some physical service!
On a total side note, this week we had to drive to the collision repair center because my comp got in a little accident with the ditch on the side of the road before I got here, so I told her we need to get it taken care of, anyways, as we were leaving the collision repair center there was a jeep dealership across the way and I saw the new Grand Cherokee, I am SO disappointed in jeep.... they went from having the most beautiful SUV on the market to the most horrendous looking THING!! Ehhh! And they are putting gold grill slots in the JK's now? That was gross! Man! Anyways!! Sorry, random tangent!
I didn't get much time to tell you about last week so I will briefly update you, last week we had the Mission Christmas Party! It was a blast and very spiritual too! We had been reading the Book of Mormon as a mission and we read the last chapter together that day, it was really neat! The first picture is President Weaver and I at the Christmas party!
I invite all of you to add a little Christ to your Christmas this year and at least read these scriptures on the appropriate day; I’ll even make it easy for you and put them on here!
Today, Monday Dec. 23rd Isaiah 9:6
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
(Notice the comma between Wonderful and Counselor and that all the other names have an adjective before them, but this is not saying He is a wonderful Counselor, He is Wonderful, and a Counselor!)
Tuesday Dec. 24th Christmas Eve 3 Nephi 1:13
Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world, to show unto the world that I will fulfill all that which I have caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets.
Wednesday Dec. 25th Christmas Day!!! :] Luke 2:10-11
10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

Sorry this is so long, but I love you all!!!
HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!
Love, Sister Falkner

And the last picture is our cute Christmas tree and presents!!! :]

Monday, December 16th: A Picture Says a Thousand Words, and I'm Outta Words!

1. Hanging Lights up for a member :]

2. The Elders and Sisters of the Olympia 4th ward! We decorated the tree!

3. Sister Palmer and I!! :]

4. I love this!! Remember Christ this year!!!

Transfer calls were on Saturday and we are staying together! Yay!

Have a wonderful week! I love you all!

Love, Sister Falkner

Happy Days, All Is Well: December 9th 2013

Let the Christmas season begin! :] The Christmas devotional was amazing! I loved the part about the Hymn "Far Away on Judea's Plains" the lyrics are so great! It is a happy day, and all is well! We have God to thank for so much and He brings so much peace into our lives!! I also really loved what President Monson said about The Spirit of Christmas and if you take off the last syllable it is simply The Spirit of Christ! I hope and pray you can all feel His Spirit this wonderful time of year!! Some fun things happened this week! I got to go on my first exchange since being released as a Sister Training Leader and it was a blast, Sister Scott came to my area, she is from Ephraim and is good friends with one of my sister Britt's old Laurels. So she knew my family a little bit already! I was praying so much that I would learn from her and our short 24 hours together and I did! She has such an incredible testimony of the Book of Mormon, we went over to visit Suzi and she was having terrible withdrawal symptoms from the medication she is coming off of, she was pacing and sweating and just could not sit still, it was kind of scary to see her that way, but we asked her to sit down and we began to read the Book of Mormon to her from page 1, within the first few verses she was completely calmed and brought to ease! It was amazing! The power of the Book of Mormon is real!! I decided I wanted to try something new this week and we did it while I was on the exchange, we went Family History tracting, we took our ward Family History Representative with us and we went tracting in a 55+ community, everyone was so friendly, which was surprising because it was a "no soliciting" community, but they all love family history and wanted to hear about it, so that was great! It went well for a trail run! We also had our ward Christmas party this week, Suzi and Freddy came, they are the main two people we are working with. Suzi is being baptized on January 1st and is doing so well at working towards her goal; she is pretty much already a member! It’s great! She is Duane's wife, technically we gave Duane to the elders, but I still get to teach him and he is just a really great guy! I like him a lot! He reminds me of my big brother Sam!! :] (on a side note, Elder Bing, that is serving in 4th ward with us, he really reminds me of Ian! haha) but Suzi is doing well and she loved the Christmas party, she brought her daughter Katy and Katy brought her boyfriend Steven, so we are hoping to be able to work with all of them soon enough! :] Freddy is awesome! he is 19 and is in the marine core, we met him my first week here and he has since already read the first 120 or so pages of the Book of Mormon, he is enjoying it and he also came to the ward party, he is good friends with an inactive member but the great thing is that his friend is willing to come to the activities with him so that he doesn't feel alone, so they were both at the Christmas party. when we got there, I saw Freddy with an apron on and putting ice in all the cups, I laughed and said "Freddy what're you doing?" he just looked at me and said "well, I’m just helping" Freddy is really awesome and he continued to "just help" the rest of the evening by serving everyone their lasagna and cleaning up afterwards! He is praying about baptism on December 28th. That's the exciting part of my week! It has been around 15-20 degrees this week, it is REALLY cold!!!! But we are managing! It’s a very different kind of cold here, it penetrates to the bone and there is nothing you can do about it but shiver! Hah Anyways! I love you all!!!

Love, Sister Falkner

This is pretty much all the snow we get here! So far! hah. We will see if more is coming!

Leftovers For Life: December 2nd 2013December 2nd 2013

December 2nd 2013

Happy belated Thanksgiving my loved ones!!! :]

I hope you all had a great day and truly reflected on how blessed we are in the wonderful life!

Thanksgiving as a missionary... well we were told that we could have as many thanksgiving dinners as we could fit in one day, or our tummies. hah! So we started our day off by being picked up at 11:30am and we went to our first dinner at the Smiths home. Brother Smith is a member and his wife is not, but she suggested that he invite us, it was very nice and there were a few of their friends and family there as well, the elders came along too!

After that we went over to Suzi and Duane's home for our 2nd dinner! They are so great! Suzi just got out of surgery this week but she wanted to feed us so badly that she made it work! They were all exhausted from the cooking and baking and moving furniture to make some space for us, but they pulled it all off and we had a wonderful thanksgiving dinner with them and their friends and neighbors! :] the greatest part of the day was at their home. Two really wonderful things happened!

1. We all went around the table and said what we are grateful for, Suzi said she is grateful to be joining the true church, she is being baptized on January 1st :] then she practically bore her testimony about the church and how blessed her life has been since meeting with us, it was so special! THEN!!!! Duane said what he was grateful for and he said "I'm grateful for you guys (looks at all us missionaries) ya’ll ain't gonna convert me though... (awkward silence) I'm just kiddin' we'll see!" it was great! Duane will be baptized soon enough! He is being prepared! Then he prayed for the food which was a huge step for him! It was so fabulous!!!

2. The next best thing of the day was the homemade butterscotch cheesecake Duane made! I had been saving room for it all day!!! He was going to make a white chocolate cheesecake, but he found out I wasn't eating chocolate and changed the recipe for me! It was so dang delicious!!

Later on in the day we went over to another family’s house, the Klumkers, they are a really great family!! We had a nice lesson with them and got to enjoy some pie, it was really nice! They have a very "Homey" house! It felt good to be there!

The rest of our week was good, I haven't been feeling very good, but I’ll get over it!

We found this really sweet old lady named Anna this week! She is 96 and wants to read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year! We are meeting with her on Wednesday; hopefully she remembers who we are! :]

I love you all! We are now in the month of December, or as we call it in the mission, the month of Christ!!! :] Always remember Him and what He did for you!

Love, Sister Falkner

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=2874125972001

Sister Palmer and I on Thanksgiving!!

We were grateful that the sun was shining!!! :]

Seers and Revelators, here in Washington: November 25th 2013

This week was a great one for the journal! On Saturday we had Elder Neil L. Anderson from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles here in the Washington Tacoma Mission! He spoke to us on Saturday and had with him, Craig C Christianson from the presidency of the Seventy. It was a really incredible meeting and he got me really pumped to do missionary work! He talked a lot about missionary work and the atonement! It was good for me to hear, so that was really wonderful! He is a great guy and he took the time to shake all of our hands. This week we also had a baptism, her name is Kate Kacho, and she plays Volleyball!!! :] it was fun to talk with her a little bit about that and then a lot a bit about the Gospel! so that's great! Other than that its been kind of a slow week here, we are working at building our teaching pool and so far we are doing alright, keep the people of Olympia in your prayers! Love you all!! have a blessed week!!

Love Sister Falkner!!

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=2714780496001

^^Wrong Roads

The Picture is Sister Palmer, Kate Kacho, and Me at the baptism!

The work goes forth in Olympia 4th :] - November 18th 2013

Hello everyone!!! So I am now in Olympia 4th ward and I LOVE it here!!! It is VERY different being put here because this is the first time I have come into an area and there was actually already work going on. It’s strange to me! But it’s kind of nice! We already have like 10 progressing investigators and we had a baptism Saturday. It’s crazy! I am so used to being put in slow areas and having to make the best of it, so this is all so strange to me! But no complaints!! I like it and the ward seems so sweet! This week we had some serious rain! I think it rains more in the southern part of the mission because I never had this much rain in the North (this is my first time serving on the southern side of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.) we were tracting this week and we were DRENCHED!!!!!!! I hung my coat in the closet to dry and it took two days!! Every single layer of my clothes was soaked and it was so cold! It is around the 40's here but with all the rain and wind chill I feel like I am back in Rexburg in January. Haha it’s chilly. This ward is really great and because there is so much work going on here, the ward has 2 sets of missionaries now. We have Sister Palmer and I and a set of Elders. Elder Bing and Elder Johnson. Elder Johnson is from Herriman and lives around the corner from Joe (from teraflex) he loves jeeps so we have some good conversations. It’s fun to have someone that actually understands!! :] anyways, it’s very interesting sharing a ward but I like it, we work really well together and we have been giving the Elders some of our investigators and things are starting to play out the way they should be! It’s really great!! So, Sister Palmer is my new companion. She is the sweetest thing!!! Here’s the funny thing... She is from Sandy Utah.... weird huh??? hahaha she graduated from Brighton in 2011 (the same year as me) and she knows some of the kids I went to middle school with! It’s fun! She is so sweet and has been out for a little over a month! She is doing great though and the ward loves her, as do I!!! I want you all to know how much the Lord knows what He is doing! I have already found my reason for being here in this ward at this time. His name is Dwayne. Dwayne is the Husband to Suzi and she has been meeting with the sisters for a little over a month now. She is incredible and is going to be baptized January 1st. Dwayne has never sat in on the lessons with suzi but he believes in God and wants to do things his way and in his time. The first time we went over there I asked him if he would ever have the desire to be baptized by proper authority and he said "one day" then we chatted for a bit, but when we wanted to start the lesson he stood up to leave. I asked him to stay just for the prayer and he did, his wife Suzi said that was a huge step for him, so that was cool. I didn't think much of it but the next time we went over there we brought the elders because Dwayne said he might like to meet with the Elders. all four of us went in and started visiting with them and Dwayne was about to leave, I told him that he wanted elders and I brought him elders and that it would be rude of him to leave, so he agreed to sit in for the lesson. (HUGE MIRACLE) I asked if we could begin with me offering an opening prayer and he sarcastically said NO so I told him if I couldn't then he would have to, and he didn't like the idea of that so he let me say the prayer. The cool part about Dwayne is that I catch on to his little tricks and sarcasm really well and I challenge it, he has gone through some passive missionaries before and never been challenged so this is good for him. Anyways! We had a great lesson and the spirit was so strong, he began to tear up and said he had to go so we wrapped up and said a kneeling prayer before he left. He promised to be at church the next day, which made me so happy!! Dwayne didn't come to church Sunday but he had a good enough reason, Suzi worked him too hard the day before with moving around furniture and he hurt his back, but she came up to me and told me that later that night he told her that he has needed someone to challenge him and that he wants to get back into church!! Yay!!! I love him, I don't even know if this story made any sense because when I get excited I tend to ramble, but Dwayne has a spot in my heart and I am so excited for the little steps he is taking!!! :] I love you all! Oh and Allison, from Silverdale got baptized this Friday!!! I didn't get to go, but I know it was great! I love her so much! That's all.
Love, Sister Falkner

Me and Sister Palmer

The Olympia 4th Ward Missionaries. Elder Johnson, Elder Bing, Me, and Sister Palmer

November 12th 2013: A week of goodbye's always welcomes a week of hello's

Happy late Veterans Day my friends!! November 12th 2013 If you couldn't guess by the title, I am leaving Silverdale. After 6 short months here, my time is up. I am heading down to Olympia 4th ward today and I am very excited! It has been a little bit difficult saying goodbye to all those I have grown to love here, but I know that our friendships are eternal, so its okay!!! My next companion will be Sister Palmer, I don't know anything about her except that she has been out for 6 weeks and I will doing her follow-up training. It will be fun to have a companion that still feels the newness of everything! I am really excited!!! We had a leadership meeting this week and the mission made some changes, its really interesting and I don't know if any of you even care, but its sometimes fun to see how different missions run things so here are the new rules of our mission. We used to be able to eat dinner at either 4 or 7 and we would have to knock on doors from 5-7 everyday but we have made a new rule that dinners have to be at 4 everyday so that we have more time to schedule evening appointments! Its hard on the members, but I know it will really help the missionaries with scheduling :] it will be good, another change that was made is a little harder for me to get used to but I will gain a testimony of it soon I'm sure! We are no longer allowed to play sports with the elders on p-day. We can have a lunch with all the zone once per transfer and play a sport once per transfer but the only sport we can all play together is volleyball, fine by me :] but the hard part is that all the other p-days we have to spend all our time with the sisters and I feel like I will get a lot less exercise.. oh well. It will be good and keep things the way they should be!:] We also are only supposed to teach with the scriptures from here on out. No more tricks or visuals or gimmicks, analogies or anything. It will be a little tricky but it will bring the spirit so much quicker! It will all be good! Change is good! Here is Silverdale this week we had some great things happen. First off, Cindy got a calling! She is a relief society representative! We are really excited for her she is doing so great!!! Peggy is doing super great as well. She is still learning and praying about the gospel, but she is awesome! She is coming to the ward chili cook off and bringing her famous chili! Its awesome! Allison came to church this week and after Sunday school she turned around to us and told us she wants to be baptized before she moves away to Massachusetts, (she moves this Saturday) haha so she will probably be baptized this Friday! I am going to be sad to miss it, but she will be awesome and I am so happy for her!! My funny story for the week. I went to say goodbye to my dear friend Robin Plyler, I love her so much. She has a son on a mission and is learning about the church! She celebrated my birthday with me and this week we celebrated her birthday with her! She is a doll! We said our goodbyes and asked her to say the closing prayer and she doesn't like to pray in front of people, but I love it when she does because they are always unique and from the heart! This time she was kind of funny, if that's okay to say about a prayer? Hah she said “thank you for putting Sister Falkner in my lives...... (long pause) I mean life... (long pause) I'm not a cat, I don't have 9 lives....(long pause with a few escapes of laughter) Meow....” Robin is so fun and her prayers are so funny! She just speaks whats on her mind and what is in her heart, I love it so much! I love you all and I hope to hear from you at my new address which is 320 Israel Rd SW Tumwater WA 98501 Love always, Sister Falkner!

Gods Greatest Creation: November 4th 2013

November 4th 2013 <----- november?? weird... Hello hello!! :] well this week we had some fun things happen. 1. I went on an exchange to Bainbridge Island, it was fun I got to be with Sister White, she has only been out for about 5 weeks so its always fun to be around the new ones because their desire to work is so strong! I really enjoyed it! We even put two people on date to be baptized while I was there, so that was really cool! 2. We had a ward activity this week and it was a haunted forest. There is a family, the Baldridge's that have a ton of trees in their backyard and the youth went and decorated it and dressed up to be the scary people inside. We had Breann, an investigator that came and she brought her friend and her two kids. The haunted forest was fun because it was for all ages, they did a scary version and a not so scary version. When Breann and her two kids got there we asked her if she wanted to do the scary or not scary version and she chose scary, I was really hoping she wouldn't cause we had to go with them and I'm a baby... but it wasn't too bad and her kids took it like a champ!!! She stuck around and talked with a lot of people and it was a really good opportunity for her. 3. We had our downstairs neighbor and his cute daughter Chloe bring us some Halloween balloons and caramel apples they are really nice, they took us out for ice cream last week! He is a very less active member, and he actually came to church with us for a bit last week, so its cool getting to know them better! 4. Halloween night! :] Halloween as a missionary is a little bit different than most Halloweens. Haha we had a zone meeting and then we all went over to sister Bohls house for dinner. She had tons of food ready for all of us (24 missionaries) and she stayed up way late last night making caramel apples for each one of us! It was so great, she has a very fun house too, she has foosball, air hockey, ping pong, and a little arcade basketball type game. Its really fun and the missionaries really enjoyed it. We grilled up some burgers and played for a bit and then we got to watch a movie. President and Sister Weaver sent us some candy and a movie for us to watch as a zone. We got to watch Ephraim's Rescue. It was a really good movie, I really enjoyed it! Pretty funny too! It was obviously the most spiritual Halloween I've ever been a part of but I really loved it! It was a blast! Sister Bohls is so sweet!!! So those are the exciting things that have been going on here this week! This week I started a 40 day fast. I have been praying a lot about what I can give up to be healthier so that I will be more capable of giving the work 100% of my attention and energy because of my ankle and being sick the last two weeks, its been hard but I have given it a lot of thought and prayer and I am fasting for 40 days from milk and chocolate. I get sick just about everyday, but I think its because I start my day off with cereal, so I am giving up milk so I can not feel sick as often, and so far so good! And chocolate is just for my own health and to get rid of that so call “addiction” so please dont send me any! :] I know that when we take care of our bodies it is easier for us to feel the spirit and I have faith that as I refrain from the things that dont do my body good for this little stretch of time I can come closer to my Heavenly Father and show Him how grateful I really am for this wonderful gift of a body! You should all check out this video!!! :] “Gods Greatest Creation” http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages Transfer calls are this Saturday night, I will let you know what is going on next week! :] Love you!!! have a great week! Love, Sister Falkner!

Coke in Sacrament: October 28th 2013

This week was pretty incredible and I have lots to tell you all, so I hope you find this entertaining and not a drag, cause it could be a long one. This week on Tuesday the 22nd was my companion, Sister Young's birthday!!! We had a great day and the best part was that we went over to Sister Bohls house for dinner and she said we could invite whoever we wanted! So we had like 3 less actives and 2 non-members at her birthday dinner, it was really awesome!! I've also been kind of sick this last few weeks and I have not totally gotten better, but I went to the doctor on Thursday, as I was sitting and waiting to be called back I was looking at the options for reading materials, there in front of me I had the choice to read MotorTrend, or the Bible.... My agency was truly being tested, but I decided I ought to read the Bible while I was waiting. I opened it up and started reading in Romans 5, and in verses 3-4 it says “but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience, experience, and experience, hope.” I found it very comforting because I had been struggling a lot with not being able to work as effectively while being sick and I just felt like I didn't need this trial, but I am overcoming it and learning patience from it, so that is a good thing I guess. I'm glad I chose to read the Bible instead because I was really grateful to have run across that verse! :] So, the work is picking up here, right as I am probably about to leave, but thats okay! This week we taught Taylor Junt, she is 16 and a friend of the bishop's daughter, she is awesome and very receptive, she has been going to youth activities and really enjoys them, she is fun to teach and we just lover her, we are teaching her again tonight! Allison is another person we are working with, she is awesome! She was supposed to meet with us this week but she got sick and had to go to the hospital, we asked her if she would like a priesthood blessing and she was so honored that we offered that to her, so we went with the Elders and she got a blessing, she loved it and really felt her Father's love for her! She is plowing through the Book of Mormon like a champ! We are really excited to be meeting with her regularly when she gets out of the hospital! So keep her in your prayers!! This Sunday before church Ashley got her Patriarchal Blessing, it was amazing to be a part of that with her, she loved every second of it and, I felt so strongly how much Heavenly Father loves her! Now it's time for a fun story! This week at church we had 3 people attending for their first time. 1. Treyvon, he was invited by a friend in the ward and he liked it, but is going to stick with his baptist beliefs. 2. Tito (teeto) he is pretty cool. He just moved her from the East coast and we knocked into him about 2 weeks ago, he said casually that he would come to church sometime, so sunday we text him and re-extended the invitation and he came, it was awesome!!! 3. Breann, she is someone we have slowly been teaching and we weren't really sure how much she cared, but she said she would come to church and she wants to be baptized, so its great that she is now progressing!! she has 2 crazy kids, Eli (boy) who is 6 and Ellie (girl) who is 2. So now that you know a little bit about them. Breann walks in late and sits by Tito, she has a huge Coke from the gas station in her hand and we were in the overflow in the gym. Within 2 minutes one of her kids had knocked it over... She was SOO embarrassed and she didn't really know what to do, but heck... neither did I... so we just kind of looked around unsure how to handle the situation but before we knew it, Brother Laing and like 3 other guys were rushing back in with paper towels in hand. They were all on there hands and knees, mid-sacrament meeting cleaning it up. Haha they got it all taken care of and church went on. Kind of a crazy first time for both Tito and Breann. The nice part was that we were in the back and no one in front of us knew what was going on, so we only really distracted the people behind us! It was a good time at church for sure! The rest of it went really well! Sister Young and I have been on this kick lately about the 2 great commandments, of loving God and loving our neighbors, we have been talking about it a lot with the members and amoungst ourselves and it reminded me of this quote I got in a letter a while ago. It said “God doesnt love us because of who we are, he loves us because of who He is” I loved it! I thought it was really great, and it makes so much sense! When we can get to the point where we love people becase its just natural and its who we are, we truly have a Christlike love, rather than only loving the people that are easy to love. So that is my invitation to you this week. LOVE EVERYONE!!! I love you all!!! Love, Sister Falkner!

Hakuna Matata :] October 21st 2013

This week was a good one for Sister Young and I. We are going about missionary work a little bit differently this transfer. We are meeting with a lot of the younger people that are having a hard time getting themselves to commit to the church, but they are some pretty awesome people!!!! I love them! We have been working a lot with Isaac and Megan! ISAAC is a convert, he converted when he was 18 and went on a mission at 20, he has been home for about a year and kind of fell in a rut of missing church and hangin' around the wrong crowd, but his desire is real and he wants to come back, last week he bore his testimony is sacrament and he said he has been happier the last few weeks that he has been meeting with us and living the gospel more fully, it's really awesome to hear! This week we had a lesson planned with him and he had to cancel due to family things, so we rescheduled and he had us meet him over at his parents house who are both very less active and his sister was there also, she is not a member and has taken the discussions before, but she said she would pray with us next time , so that was great because we didn't even ask for a next time! We are really hoping to begin teaching her and see their whole family at church soon :] they are really great! MEGAN, is so great! She was raised in the church and became a bit rebellious in her teen years, she has tattoos and piercings and enjoys all of them, she likes to be artistic and different, her mother still lives in the ward and is a ward missionary, super awesome family! Megan is improving leaps and bounds!! She is reading the scriptures everyday, and her faith is so strong! She has a real desire to work at her salvation, she just needs to let it stick this time around! But we love her and we love meeting with her, this week she even brought a friend from work to church and he was really interested!! It's been really great seeing the rewards that come from working with these people!! :] We had a Relief Society lunch today and Peggy, Robin, Cindy and Ashley were able to come (I'll explain all of them later) but it went so well and everyone fellow shipped them so quickly, we really couldn't have asked for more from the ward! It was incredible! So PEGGY... she is awesome, she is engaged to Dave, who was born and raised in the church but hasn't been since he was about 20, he has a strong testimony of the truth of it all though. He loves that Peggy is taking the lessons because he is so proud of his beliefs! I love it! They are the cutest couple! They are probably in there late 50's and they are just spunky and fun! Peggy came to the Relief Society broadcast, she came with Sister Chong and she loved it! We accidentally knocked into her a couple of weeks later and she accepted the lessons, so we have met with them twice and things are going great! We love her!! ROBIN has a son on a mission, he converted at 18 and went out at 19, she has not joined the church yet, but we are working on loving her into it! She comes almost every week and to all the ward activities, she loves missionary visits!! There are some health (mental) things that are stopping her from joining, but I wouldn't be surprised if she is baptized by her son when he gets home! CINDY is our recent convert who is still just doing awesome!!!! ASHLEY is another recent convert who is doing so great! She is getting her patriarchal blessing this Sunday, we are so excited for her! She called us last night to tell us a few things and one of them was pretty funny so I wanted to share it with you. A little fact before I tell, in this mission we knock on doors from 5pm-7pm with no excuses except for with presidents permission. Ashley was over at her friends house in the other ward and the missionaries were over. They had been there for a while (longer than the allotted hour) and it was almost 7pm and she knew that we are supposed to be tracting so, she simply looked at them and asked, Aren't you elders supposed to be knocking on doors right now? Hahaha I love that she called them out on it! She is a hoot! Well, that's a good note to end on! I love you all! Love, Sister Falkner

Oh How Lovely Was the Morning :] October 14th 2013

To all my family and friends! Oh how I love you! It is a beautiful day here in Washington!!! This week was good, I got sick Friday night, that was no fun, but the work goes on!! I am feeling a bit better today but still not up to par yet! Anyways, that's not important! Although, our sweet ward mission leader and his wife rushed over to our apartment Friday night when they found that I wasn't feeling well and they brought me medicine and vitamins, it was very kind of them! This week we knocked on Peggy's door. Peggy came to the general relief society broadcast with a friend a couple weeks back. We knocked on her door not knowing she lived there and she gladly welcomed us in, she brought down her husband (even though we found out they aren't actually married...yet) Dave, He is a less active member that believes it all and loves it, just struggles with keeping the commandments! But they are great! We visited and got a return appointment for Thursday, on Thursday we went back with the Frei's because they already knew each other and were friends. Peggy and Dave had read the introduction to the Book of Mormon and the testimonies in the beginning, she had some questions that we were able to answer and then we taught the first lesson, it went so well! We asked her what her idea of a prophet is and she said “well, Joseph Smith. Right?” she is so receptive and open to learn. She is a “cradle catholic” as she says, and she says we are “cradle mormons” hahah she is so cute! We are really excited to continue meeting with them! We had Mission Leadership Council this week. That's always a really spiritual meeting because it is filled with very respectable missionaries that all have such a reverence and strong spirit, I loved it! Sister Young and I did a training at the meeting and it went well, we talked about working with the members and having them help with the work. As President Weaver says, the church has 15 million missionaries, not just 80 thousand! Then later that night we had a lesson with 3 less active people, it was GREAT!!! We sang an opening song and taught the restoration, then we had a little testimony meeting at the end and they all shared their testimony, the spirit was so strong and then on Sunday, 2 out of the 3 of them came to church! The one that didn't make it had work and it was too late of notice to get it off, but he is doing great! Those were the highlights of my week, I would love to hear about yours! I love you all! Love, Sister Alie Falkner

Back On Two Feet! :] October 7th 2013

Hello everyone!!!! I went to the doctor this week and my ankle is healed! Yay!!!! :] its great to walk around like a normal person! I love it! I cant run or jump or anything, but I can walk and tract, so its good! So this week we met a really awesome guy named Gary, he was not interested at first but he just said that because he didn't know how much our message could bless his life, we talked to him for a while and he was very receptive but still not super interested. He loves the Lord and goes to church already, but he admitted to us that he was struggling with overcoming alcoholism. At this point we had asked him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon twice and he said no both times. I felt like we couldn't give up on him yet though, so I shared a scripture with him (Alma 17: 2-3) and promised him that if he studied the Book of Mormon with the Bible that he would be able to gain the spiritual strength to overcome his addiction, at the end of my promise I asked him again if he would read and pray about the Book of Mormon, and he excitedly looked me in the eye and said “ABSOLUTELY” it was really great to see the spirit touch him and see his heart changed, I am excited to begin teaching him! GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!!!!! Ahhhhhh. What a marvelous weekend! Its like Christmas as a missionary! I loved it so much! Sister Young and I had a goal of watching conference in 4 different homes, one for each session, and to have someone we are working with in each home. We don't have a lot of people we are teaching right now because they are all recent converts now, but it was great because we accomplished our goal. We watched the 1st session at the Hatch home with Ashley and Cindy, it went really well, we had some yummy homemade cinnamon rolls. Sister Hatch is the Relief Society president and she makes everything handmade and its all so yummy! I love that family! The 2nd session was at Sarah Chamberlin's home she is working on coming back to church and she is just really awesome, her husband is not a member but we are hoping to start working with them as a family real soon! The 3rd was with the Johnson's and a less active Jessica Furby was there the Johnson's are awesome, they had two nonmembers at the 4th session but we weren't able to stay for that one. And 4th we watched it at the Bohl's and we are working with her daughter Megan Bohls she is really great and has such a strong testimony and desire to come back to the church. It was so awesome to watch is so many different environments but to see how each session was such an answer to these peoples prayers! I loved it so much! Some of my favorite things that were said are... God is perfect, His doctrine is pure. But he works through imperfect people. -Uchtdorf The world has enough woman of fame and fortune, we need woman of faith! -Christopherson Opposition in all things is not a flaw of God's Plan of Salvation. -Dyches Patiently enduring is part of our mortal existence. -Holland Joy is guaranteed to the Faithful. -Eyring There is not ONE of us that He has not desired to save. -Eyring Mans law cannot make moral what is immoral in God's laws. -Oaks You must become the rock the river cannot wash away. And of course the one everyone remembers... Doubt your doubt before you doubt your faith. -Uchtdorf. Take these things into your life and apply them!!! I love you all! Have a blessed week! Love, Sister Alie Falkner!

September 30th 2013, Silverdale: Rural Roots Urban Flare

Hello family, this week was really great! I went on an exchange to the Silverdale 6th ward and met some interesting people. 1. Jennifer, she is the daughter of the ex-Mormon that wrote the "Godmakers" book, she has had her records removed but is now meeting with the missionaries again. She wasn't really progressing so I was curious why the sisters were still going over there but when I went we had a good chat and she commented on my CTR ring, she said that “choose the right” meant so much more to her now than it did when she was young and she thought it was great that I wore the ring. I told her I wore two and I gave her one of mine, she cried and willingly accepted it and promised to wear it, it was a really sweet experience! Then we talked and got her committed to read the first 14 pages of the Book of Mormon before the sisters went back two days later for their next appointment. She promised to read them and said that she wants to better understand them so she would probably read them twice! It was really cool to see her make commitments and begin progressing. 2. Old Farmer Jensen. This man is the Real Deal with a capital R and a capital D. He is 95 years old and is a former prisoner of war from WW2. He still manages to maintain a farm at his age and not only that, he has a corn maze that he keeps up that is in the shape of a B-17 aircraft, it is a replica of the one he flew in the war. His corn maze is in the newspaper and people drop by to see it all the time. He said he always tells them his war stories and then tells them that after he served his mission in the war, he served a mission for the church and then he always invites them to church! Haha he is such a cute old man! He gave us a tour of the maze and told lots of cool stories and then he gave us an ear of corn and we were on our way! The rest of the exchange went well, I was with Sister Casey from my MTC district. She is fun and we had a good time together. The Relief Society broadcast was awesome right??? I loved it! Funny story... we had a baptism on Saturday, it was Jacob Pickard, he is the brightest kid!!! We have had a lot of fun teaching him. His mom is a member and his dad is not, but his dad came to the baptism and helped Jacob change into his church clothes after and was very nice, he is just a really quiet guy! One day he will accept this message! :] butttt, after the baptism we were all having our treats and the power at the Stake Center went out. There was a terrible rain and wind storm and a tree fell on the wires and took out the power. People finished there treats and headed home. As we were locking up and getting out, we saw the crew that was making the dinner for the Relief Society broadcast in the kitchen, they seemed a bit flustered and unsure what to do. We knew the power wouldn't be on for at least two hours and the dinner was in 3 hours. We loaded up all the food in our car and took it to our church building, so they could cook it there. We had to make tons of calls to get everyone to the right building and then we got the elders over and we got all the tables and chairs set up within like 10 minutes. It was so awesome! The dinner and broadcast worked out great and we had a huge turn out! Very exciting day, Saturday night we also got our transfer calls. God is granting me the desires of my heart and letting Sister Young and I see the fruits of our labors! I get 6 more weeks in the this wonderful ward!! :] Church yesterday was unreal! So this week we had a special training about hastening the work, the area authority, Elder Bussey came and spoke to the Ward Councils about hastening the work it was really awesome!! (D&C 88;73) so that's what we talked about it church and it was so cool! I felt like I was in a zone training or something! The ward here is getting pumped to help us out and they are already setting up dinners with us and their friends and inviting them to activities! I am so glad I get to stay and be a part of it and see what comes of all this “ward relations” I have been doing! This week in my studies I read Jacob 5. It's an incredible chapter and I feel like I could read it a million times and still learn and pull something out of it. This week I read it and what I got out of it was so incredible! In this chapter the Lord is pruning His vineyard, they work and work and work to prune this vineyard and they don't get as far as they like so they decide to prune it one last time and this time He tells his servant to go gather MORE SERVANTS to prune the vineyard with Him because the end is nigh. This happens in verse 70 and in verse 71 the Lord says He will work with his servants in the vineyard! I love it so much and it applies so well to the age change for missionaries, the Lord is hastening his work and he is working with us. I love what I am doing, I love being a missionary and I am happy as can be to be staying in Silverdale. :] I love you all dearly!!! Love, Sister Falkner. p.s. I go back to the doctor tomorrow morning to get my foot ex-rayed again. Please pray that it will heal fast(er)!!!!

September 23rd 2013

I will come up with a catchier subject line. I feel as though my letters are boring in comparison to my sweet cousin Sister Jensen. I will try to make them interesting. Good Monday to all! This week has been so blessed! We got to go to Zions camp with the mission and that was really fun! We got to see everyone do the ropes coarse and help them apply it to missionary work and it was a really great spiritual experience. Friday we went on an exchange to Bainbridge Island, it was really fun. We were with Sister Baird and Sister Rea, they are doing so well out there and everything is good, it is a beautiful area! On the exchange I talked with them a lot about how to work with members and helped them get that started. Working with members is soooo important in missionary work, you cant expect anyone to totally change and give there life to the church if they don't even have friends there. So I encourage you all to be a friend to ANYONE the missionaries might bring to church! Cindy Askren was baptized yesterday! She is such a sweet lady!! her birthday is actually today! Yay! Her baptism went so well and she is so happy! She loves the church, she loves us, and she loves God. Its incredible, I have loved working with her! She is just a doll! Our mission is reading the Book of Mormon all together and we are right around Jacob, its been really cool, I am reading there and where I was before in the middle of Alma, I have learned a lot from my studies and its been really great for me. My favorite verse I read this week was 2 Nephi 33:4 Read it Apply it It will bless you! I love being a missionary, the joy I find is so incomparable to anything I have found. I miss worldly things sometimes but it's silly. I've found true joy in my life here in Washington and I have gained a greater appreciation for the scriptures, the word of God. :] I have gained a HUGE appreciation for my parents and for all the wonderful support and love I receive from friends and family! I love you all so much! Have a super marvelous week! Love, Sister Falkner

September 16th 2013

Hey everyone! This week was incredible! I love being a missionary! So yesterday at church we had a family that came with the Johnson's, they stayed for all three hours of church and they want to learn more, so we are really excited about that and beginning to teach them! It will be great! We also had another girl there for her first time, she came with her friend Madi, her name is Taylor and she is 16 and loved church, she is going to the young woman's activity this week and just really likes all the girls in the ward and the organization of the church, so we will probably start teaching her soon too! The Johnson's fed us dinner on Thursday and we had a family with 2 unbaptized daughters come, we were able to teach them and they invited the families home teachers over so that they could get to know one another better, it went really well, then we made a cake for a recent converts birthday and while we were decorating it we found out that sister Johnson is the visiting teacher for the family we were making the cake for, so she was able to deliver it with is and meet the family. She said she was having a really hard time meeting them and we were able to help her with that, so it was great! Then on Saturday there was a baptism in a different ward and we took Cindy to it so she would feel more comfortable for her own baptism, Cindy cant drive so we had a member drive us all there and then she also drove us to our dinner appointment after where we had the Chamberlin's (recent converts) and their Home teachers and us and Cindy and the Powell's, the ones feeding us. It was a big group but it was really great to have that much fellowship for Cindy and the Chamberlin's! We also were able to teach the commandments to Cindy to help her prepare for her baptism! The lesson went so well and we had lots of good imput from the members there! I loved it! I hope that all makes sense! Haha the ward is getting really involved in the work and helps us out so much! I love it! I love this ward! Transfers are at the end of the month and I am kind of hoping to stay another transfer, but who knows! STL's only stay in the position for a few transfers and I have already had 3 so I am pretty sure I will get pulled out soon enough. We also went to Zions camp this week which is a church run camp with a ropes course and what not so we went with all the zone leaders and other STL's and we tested the course and yada yada, I did it all with my foot, so I'm pretty sure everyone can do it, the whole mission is going back later this week and we will be running it and making sure everyone is safe! Its really fun! We had a blast! We have Cindy's baptism this Sunday and she is so awesome! I love her so much! We asked her what led her to asking for a ride to church from a member in the ward, she said she doesn't really know and that God just kind of put the words into her mouth! Haha then we talked for a bit and she explained that she told God she wanted to go back to church but that she would need some guidance and help and she said, he just guided me right to where I'm at and its all been relatively easy since then. It was so fun to talk with her about it and to know that God really did answer her prayers! I love Cindy so much! We may have another baptism this week too, it will be Jacob Pickard, we have been working with him for a little over a week now but he wants it and is ready, so if we can finish the lessons, he will join Cindy on Sunday, if not then we will continue to teach him and plan for next Saturday! I am doing well, my foot is feeling better and I am happy as can be! :] I love you all! Love, Sister Falkner!

September 9th 2013

Hello everyone! This week was a good one! We had stake conference, and zone conference! Zone conference was really good, Sister Young and I did a training on how to plan effectively and use time wisely, it went really well! At stake conference in the Adult session it was really interesting, they had a non member speak! Haha he talked about his experiences with going to girls camp and cooking for all of the girls! It was pretty cool, then for the Sunday part of it we had a broadcast from SLC. It was really cool and they talked about a lot of good stuff! One of my favorite was L.Tom Perry said something about how we need to let our spirits control our bodies, I really liked the image of that and how we sometimes just let our bodies take over and our spirits have no choice but to follow, but if we are really doing the will of the Father of our spirits, we can and will let our spirit guide us because our spirit has to be much more in tune with the Holy Spirit than our body is. Such a simple concept, yet it is so often ignored. I know I am very guilty of it! So that's my thought for you today, I hope it makes sense. This week we had some awesome things happen! Last Sunday Cindy (a former investigator) came to church with her friend Sherry. She really enjoyed it and we set up a time to meet up again, we met and taught the first lesson and she is on date to be baptized on September 21st :] we have met with her again since and she is still preparing for that day and is really excited! So its awesome! We also had another miracle, our ward mission leader Brother Laing was at Home Depot with his son Mason and they ran into someone in our ward that has been working on coming back to church, she has a son that is the same age as Mason (9) and Mason mentioned something about being baptized and found that his friend Jacob was not baptized, so he exclaimed that Jacob needed that and now Jacob wants to be baptized so we will begin teaching him tomorrow! It will be awesome! We are being so blessed, especially since we cant go out knocking on doors. I hope you all are doing well this week and loving life! Much love, Sister Falkner

September 3rd 2013

Hey Everyone! So this week was really good! i went to the foot doctor in Tacoma and found out that I have a stress fracture in my ankle so I have to wear a boot and use crutches (I don't really use them though, I'm just supposed to) my foot should heal in 3-5 weeks and if it does not then there is a risk of me having to go home to recover but that wont happen. Please keep me in your prayers :] the doctors in Salt Lake want me to go home right now but President and Sister Weaver said that we don't need to do that, so I am considering myself lucky to be here! :] So with my foot, I cant go tracting and we are having to rely completely on the members for finding new people to teach, it will be interesting but I am excited and this is a great ward to be in for this! I know they can help us out a lot! :] We got to go on an exchange to Port Angeles on Friday and it was so fun to be back up there with the people I was working with. It is about an hour and a half to get there so we just doubled the area and both stayed up there for the day! I got to see Liz, she is awesome! She was baptized the week after I left PA and she is doing great! She is fully active and much happier and healthier since her baptism! Its awesome!!! :] I also got to see the Vaitkus family, Lindsey is a member and her husband Joey is not. Joey works a lot and was never available while I was there but he did agree to take the lessons when his boat was docked in June/July. But I found out that Lindsey had some issues with her pregnancy and while he was docked they had to spend a lot of time in Seattle at the doctors, so he was unable to get the lessons. BUT while I was there I was really pushing getting them to church and when I went to check up on them Lindsey said that they went to church the week after I left and joey was looking for me! Haha her mom was there helping her with the baby and she said that they had just been talking about me and wondering how I was doing, so that was cool! Joey was asleep but she went and woke him up and we talked about him taking the lessons again and he said he wanted to still but he will be off to sea for a while, but the sisters up there will work with him and I told him I want to be there when he gets baptized and he said that he would make sure I was! So I am excited for him! It was fun to see them again! I have recently acquired a liking for the taste of almonds, something I hated before, so that's cool! That's all the news I got for today! Love you all! Love Sister Falkner.

August 26th 2013

Hello! This week was really good. We had a baptism yesterday, his name is David, he is a really cute young boy! We have been teaching him for about two months now and he is a hoot! Their family is black, which I wouldn't mention unless I had a reason. Soooo, the reason I mention this is because this was the most “different” baptism I have had yet. They are a fun family and have been less active for a while but they are going back to church now so that's good, but they just don't totally understand the formality of church ordinances so they were clapping after the talks and responding and talking to the people and taking pictures and just lots of funny things, I feel like it's part of the culture or something! But it was fun! This week on Friday and Saturday we had a big fair in town and we went and passed out over 600 ice cold water bottles with mormon.org cards taped to them and our phone number. It was really cool! We got a really good response from most of the people so that was neat! Everyone loves water, right? We had a few people ask if we had any beer in there and I just laughed at them and told them our bud light was so light it had 0% alcohol :] they would laugh and move on. Haha Sister Young is my new companion, she is really great and a very hard worker so we do well together, I am excited for this transfer. I know we will be able to accomplish a lot. She is a hair stylist and is from Cedar Hills Utah, near alpine. :] That's about all for this week folks! Love you tons! Have a super great week! Alma 26:8 look it up! Love, Sister Falkner

August 19th 2013

Hey Everyone!!! Transfers are tomorrow! I am staying in my current area and both of my companions are leaving me! I am only getting one in return, which is kind of a good thing. Trio's are difficult! My companion as of tomorrow will be Sister Young. I know her a little bit and she is cool! She is a cosmetologist and I can just tell that God is wondering how serious I was when I said I wouldn't dye my hair my whole mission, he is testing me by giving me two cosmetologist companions in a row! Ahhh. It might be difficult, but I can do it! This week we got a new Ward Mission Leader in our ward! He is soooo awesome! He is taking such good care of us and is just on fire about missionary work! This will be his 8th time being a ward mission leader, its almost intimidating because he actually knows what he is doing. All the other ones I have had just go with the flow but he is very pumped and ready to help us in EVERY way he can! Its really awesome and takes a lot of stress off our shoulders! We had Ashley's baptism this week! She is so incredible! She has been posting pictures of facebook, so you have probably seen her! This has been a long time coming for her and I am so happy she got to take this step and she is so happy that she has too! Her baptism was so awesome! She has been attending our ward and seminary since December now! The ward loves her and has always said she was already a part of the ward so her baptism was so big that we actually had to move it to the chapel! She had so much support! She was introduced to the church on a cruise by a return missionary! He is currently working in Portland and was able to drive up to support her in this choice! It was really awesome! I love her so much! That's pretty much it for this week! I love you all! :] feel free to write! Love, Sister Falkner!

August 12th 2013

Hello my fellow email readers! This week was one for the journal, too bad I never have time to write in my journal. So I will write it here. Our baptism this week fell through. He had some probation issues and is going to be baptized when those are cleared up which will be in January. So that's good! We have 2 baptisms scheduled for this week. Ashley and David. They are both way great! We love Ashley so much! She is 18yrs old and is moving to Reno soon and has already found the church building she would go to there and is excited to be around more Mormons! She is awesome! David is 11yrs old and was the only one not old enough to be baptized when his family joined the church a few years back, so he is excited and the family is coming back to church again so its just great! In our zone here we are really trying to push finding people to teach through family history, so we have a banner and business cards with the info for the family history center and we have a booth at the mall every Friday that we get to set up and offer to help people get involved with there family history. This week was my first week participating in it and I talked to 3 people that were somewhat interested, and was there for about an hour. So I hope it picks up and people realize how cool it is! I also went on an exchange this week with sister Stucki, she was in my MTC district and is just really great! I love her and it was fun to be back together for a bit! We had a lot of fun and got a lot accomplished. My goal on my mission is to teach someone that does not have a belief in God, and while we were knocking doors we found someone and he wanted to learn more, so it was really great! It was not in my area though, so I don't get to teach him, but I hope they can! :] This Saturday we went to this far out neighborhood in our ward that gets neglected a bit and we were trying to check up on some families to invite them to church. They lived on the same street so we just parked and walked to their homes, neither of them were home so we were standing by our car trying to see if there were any more members out that way that we could talk to so that it wouldn't be a complete waste of time and miles. While we were trying to find someone to go visit this old lady walking her dog came up to us and told us she wanted us out of her neighborhood and that we are being creepy and that she had our plates written down and was going to call the police on us. We tried to explain to her that we were only trying to visit members of our faith and invite them to church. She didn't believe us and told us that she would tell her neighbor, (the family we were trying to visit) that we were sneaking around their house trying to look inside. She started giving us all these threats and telling us how much she didn't like us. It was really fun. We tried to respectfully end the conversation and she just kept yelling and then she said “I'm an old lady that lives alone and if you wanna die, set foot on my property, I'll shoot ya” she's a real gem... that's about it for this week. Nothing else super exciting! Transfer calls are on Saturday and if I am being transferred it will be next Tuesday. But I hope I am staying in Silverdale! Who knows though. Love you all! Love, Sister Falkner

August 5th 2013

Hey hey hey!! Can you believe it's August already??? Ahhh!!! So today we had a mission wide BBQ for our preparation day, we have been in Tacoma for the day and we just got back! It was really fun just getting to spend time with all my missionary friends!! I love these missionaries!!! and since this whole mission is really young we will all get home relatively close to each other! It will be great! :] This week we had a pretty good week, we went on an exchange, sister Olson came to Silverdale with sister Ryser and I! We began teaching the McDaniels family this week. They are so awesome! They are a less active family but one of the sons and the father are not members of the church! So we are working with them and the son that is not a member also brings his friend every time we teach, so we are teaching his friend as well, it's really awesome! I'm so excited! David, the son is on date to be baptized on August 17th! :] We have Ashley as well, she is on date for August 16th, she has been learning about the church for around 6 months now and finally got a little room for growth from her parents, they are anti-Mormon but they told her she can do what she wants. So she is really excited about it and we just love her, she is 18 and loved going to seminary, she already goes to the singles ward activities and ward functions, it's great! :] Mike is being baptized this week on Wednesday! I am so excited for Mike, I just love him!!! He is a former semi pro football player and now he has a family and works for himself in the landscaping business, he has been SUPER busy the last few weeks with work and we thought he was blowing us off because we could never get appointments with him set up, but we met yesterday and he apologized for being so busy and said he is all caught up with work and can meet with us everyday now, so we are doing just that! He is growing so quickly! I love it! Bryan introduced himself yesterday in our Gospel Principles class and we asked everyone to say their name and something cool about themselves and his “cool thing” was that he has been a member for almost a month now!!! It made me so happy that he realized how cool that is!! He is doing so great, he meets with us all the time and hasn't missed a week of church in two months, it is really great!! This land is the promised land!! I love it here in Silverdale!! :] I have requested that I stay, and hopefully I will because there is good work to be done here! I am happy as can be, so don't worry about me! There is no greater call than doing the work of the Lord. I want you all to know how much I love what I do, and how strongly I believe and know what I teach. I love teaching people and bringing this happiness to them that they have been looking for their whole lives. It's so great that I get to guide them to that, I get to guide them to God. It's awesome!! anywho!! love you all! Love, Sister Falkner Oh yeah, and I got my first dog bite this week. It's nothing big, just dumb! That dang dog had a stinkin pony tail, who does their dog's hair? Anyways, I felt like that was a memorable moment worth sharing. :]

July 29th 2013

Hello fellow friends :] This week was good, my ankle is getting a bit better, it doesn't hurt as bad anymore so that's great!! This week could be an interesting one. My last area (belfair) lost their car because a drunkard hit it in the middle of the night, so we are lending our car to them for a little bit. We will be on bike for probably about a week. I'm actually pretty excited, only slightly nervous of how it's going to go with a skirt on. But, sisters all around the world are doing it, it can't be that bad. :] This week in silverdale they had their annual "whaling days" it's a big parade and festival type thing. We had planned to help a less active lady set up her booth on Saturday morning but she called us an hour before she told us to be there and said she was done so we didn't get to help... We didn't have any set appointments for the day because everyone and their dog was at this fair thingy, so we decided we needed to make our faces known there but we needed a good reason to go. We wrote our phone number/church time and address on about 200 Mormon.org cards and taped them to water bottles. We hauled in a HUGE cooler of water and just started passing out free ice cold water. :] everyone loved it, they said it was so thoughtful of us and really appreciated that we weren't trying to charge ridiculous amounts for just a bottle of water. The coolest part was watching all these people walk around with water bottles that say "I'm a Mormon" pretty fun for us. Haha. Then we got to go to our ward party, it was a luau on Bainbridge island. The turn out was great, we had a good armful of nonmembers there and it was just a really good time. :] So that's pretty much it for this week folks. Have a good one. Love you lots! Love, Sister Falkner :]

July 22nd 2013 (Happy Birthday to my MOMMA!!!!)

Hey hey

So this week was good, but slower than most. So this could be short.

For starters, I just got done at the doctors. My ankle is the size of a balloon and hurts like a cut in the ocean. But don't worry... Doc says I'm fine... so, I guess I will just have to keep on limpin' everywhere. :/

On the plus side, I had one of the most spiritual lessons of my mission on Wednesday. It was with Mike, he is so cool and he just soaked in everything that was said and is now on date for August 3^rd so I am really excited about that. He has been a long time coming!!!! Keep him in your prayers!! :]

I am back to exchanges every week. This week I went back to Gig Harbor (different area) and I was with Sister Clayson. She is fresh out to the field but such a hard worker. It was really awesome! We have a lot in common and she is the first sister I have been able to talk to about jeeping and she knew what I was talking about!!!! it was great! :] other than that, not much else is new. I love you all!

Love, Sister Falkner

July 15th, 2013

Hello Everyone!

So, we had transfers this week. Sister Farnsworth and I got the call that we are both staying, but then last Monday night we got a call saying we were going to be put into another trio. So we now have Sister Ryser with us as well. Its weird being in a trio again, but its fun! Sister Ryser came out the transfer after me and she is great!

For my birthday we had cake and a lesson with Robin, that was great! :] then we taught lessons and had an awesome steak dinner with the Griffith's. She bought me an ice cream cake because she didn't know I went off of ice cream, so I felt really bad because it was an expensive dairy queen one. So we had some ice cream cake, I am still going to stay off of ice cream, but I guess my birthday was an exception. Its not as great as I remember, so that was kind of nice. I thought I would crave it all the time if I had a little bit, but I don't. Then we just had more lessons. I got lots of mail and I am so thankful to all of you that sent me things! You are so awesome! THANK YOU! I apologize if I cant get a handwritten thank you to all of you, please understand I don't have tons of time :] but I am grateful! Oh, and I did get my free Slurpee, don't worry!

As for the rest of the week, it was awesome! We had 3 baptisms this week! Bryan got baptized, he is 20 and just super awesome! His friend in the ward got married this week and she was in town for two days this weekend before she went back to live in Utah with the new hubby, so he wanted to get baptized while she was in town! Luckily, he was so well prepared that we were able to make that possible for him. It was an awesome day, then we got permission to go to the reception that night and we got to see President and Sister Weaver so I will pull some pictures off of the mission blog and send them with this. :]

Then on Sunday we had our other 2 baptisms. We had Jacob and Bella's baptism. They are the cutest little things! Jacob is 10 and Bella is 8. Sarah, their mom was baptized a year ago and hasn't been very active since. But she is fully active now and the kids are so happy!

Overall a pretty awesome week for me! The work in this ward is growing so rapidly and we are so excited and happy to be able to be working hard and teaching every day! :]

Love you all!

Love, Sister Falkner

Picture 1- Bryan

Picture 2- Us and President Weaver!

July 8th 2013

Hello!! :]

So this week was just fabulous!!

Jacob and Bella are being baptized on Sunday the 14^th and I cant wait for that, they are so adorable!!

Brian is wanting to be baptized and is praying about the 20^th. He also wants to be baptized while his friend is still in town and so it might be pushed up to this week, so that would be great!! He is so solid and has been prepared by the Lord! It makes me so happy! This ward hasn't seen a baptism in over a year and they are so excited that they are getting some now!! We have been working hard and trying everything to find the people ready to hear our message and we are being so blessed and are finding them all over! We got 5 referrals this week, so that will be awesome! :]

For the 4^th of July we went tracting in the morning and then had to weekly plan. We went to a missionary BBQ with the senior couple in the area and played some football, that was a blast and super yummy food. Then we went over to a ward neighborhood party and played volleyball with some ward people. It was a blast! We had a lot of fun and really enjoyed our day! One of our sweet ward members, Brother McDonald left flowers and a nice note with flags on our porch that night, he is a convert and is so appreciative of the work we do, its really nice!

Well, as most of you should know, its my birthday this week!! YAY! I'll be out of my teen years! So, don't forget to go to 7-11 on Thursday and get yourself a free Slurpee in my honor! President gave me permission to go get a free Slurpee so don't worry, I get to celebrate a little bit too! :]

If you want to do anything for me for my birthday... I would just love to hear from you so just write me! And if you wanna go the extra mile, you can send me your favorite conference talk, because I love reading those!! :] for my birthday we will be having a lesson with all of our investigators :] and then we have a dinner with my favorite member, Sister Griffith's. She is so sweet and I'm really excited! I bought key lime pie to take to district meeting on Wednesday because I really wanted some key lime pie for my birthday, so I got myself some! It will be great!

We are getting a lot of new potential this week and it is really exciting!! I love this area sooooo much and am so happy to be here! There is a lot of work to be done!! Ohh and we got transfer calls this week, my companion and I are both staying :] yay! Love you all! Thanks for everything!

Have a great week!!!

Love, Sister Falkner!

July 1st 2013

So last week I gave you the gist on the people I am teaching and its changed already! So here is the update!

Laurie dropped us :( but she still wants to visit once in a while, she is looking into a different church and said if she doesn't really like it she will call us back, so we are waiting! ;]

Mike is doing awesome!!! He gave up coffee this week, so we gave up sugar to support him. He got a blessing for it and is doing really well. President Weaver came to one of our lessons with Mike and it went so well! President was able to answers some of Mike's questions that he has had for a while and he was at church in our ward for the first time Sunday (he had been going to a different ward before) we shared the article on personal prayer in the June ensign with him and he really liked it! When he started the lessons he didn't even believe in prayer, he is doing soo great!!! I love teaching him!!

Robin is a non member that feeds us every week and has a son out on a mission. She doesn't really have an interest in joining the church but that's because she doesn't know enough yet! She has some brain issues due to an aneurism she had last year, she loves learning though so we will keep teaching her! She is having us over for lunch on my birthday and asked me what kind of cake I wanted, I told her I was good with anything that included cream cheese frosting, so she suggested she buy me a cheesecake!!!! :] Mmm so that's what I will be getting for lunch for my birthday! She is so sweet!!

Jacob is doing great. We started teaching his sister as well and they are now both on date for July 13^th We had to push is back a week because Bella (the little sister) wanted to be baptized with him and they needed a little more time to go through the lessons because they went out of town this last weekend. But they are awesome and Sarah (the mom) is active again and loves it!!

We got a new investigator this week! His name is Brian and he has been at church the last two weeks, he is 20 and home for the summer from college, he is really good friends with an awesome family in the ward (the Olsen's) he has read the first 15 chapters of the Book of Mormon and says it has the same feeling as the Bible. He agrees with everything we are teaching him and really likes it! He is super solid! :]

Ashley is still doing great, she took us out for lunch and she brings her own fellowship to the lessons now! Haha its so easy for us! I hope her parents soften up soon and let her be baptized! That's about it. For the people we are teaching! This ward is so great, they help us out a ton and feed us well!

My companion and I have been sick this week, its really hard. She was sick earlier on in the week and right when she was getting over it, I got it. So I am sick.. its no fun! But we went to Sister Griffith's yesterday morning and she gave us all the goods to get us better. She is my favorite, she is so good to the missionaries! She was in Utah this last week and we missed her homemade bread in sacrament meeting, and her! But she is back now!! :] Last night my companion gave me a pedicure, she went to cosmetology school and said that pedicures are her favorite, so I couldn't reject when she offered to give me one! It was so nice!! :]

That's about all! I love you tons! Have a fabulous 4^th of July!!! :]

Love, Sister Falkner

June 24th 2013

Good Morning! :]

This week was pretty great with the missionary broadcast and what not! Pretty crazy that they will be giving us all that technology, I'm excited to see how it is going to work out!

We also had mission tour this week. Elder Pieper from the 70 came and taught us how we can be better and well, he just helped bring a little bit more spirit into the mission, so that was great and really helpful! I loved it! Turns out his daughter went to high school with me and we graduated the same year too! Hah, the funny things you find out later on in life! I'm not really sure who she is, but ill check the yearbook when I get home!

The members in this ward are really great, they are starting to help with missionary efforts already and I can tell that the broadcast will do a lot of good in this ward!

So a little bit about the people I am teaching, because hopefully I will stick around long enough to keep you guys updated on people without confusing you.

Mike Murray has been investigating the church for 8 months, he was introduced to the church by the example of a group of 3^rd graders in his sons class, he saw that they were outstanding kids and he continued helping out at school activities, when his son got into 6^th grade he finally asked one of these “outstanding kids” what church he belonged to and well, now he is learning about it! Mike is making a lot of progress lately and he attended his first baptism last night, so I know he is thinking about it more seriously now! Yay! He has read the Book of Mormon and is currently working on Doctrine and Covenants. He is a way cool single dad that almost went pro in football, he is HUGE!!! I told him we don't know who is going to baptize him because no one in the ward is taller than him! But it will all work out!

Laurie Bennet is a nice older lady that LOVES God. She just drinks up everything we say and is currently wrapping her head around the Book of Mormon. She is in 2 Nephi and loves it, she loves meeting with us and she is currently quitting smoking! She is funny though because she has a crazy schedule full of volunteer work so she is being taught by us (3^rd ward) goes to 2^nd ward church, and lives in 6^th ward boundaries. Thank goodness the church is true everywhere!

Ashley is an 18 yr old girl that lives with her parents and as long as she lives there she cannot be baptized :( she is solid though and wants it so bad! She attended seminary and goes to church when her parents allow, we meet with her all the time and she is so awesome! She wants to go to the temple so badly! I really hope she will be baptized soon, but we know this one could take a while. We introduced her to personal progress on Saturday and my companion and I are going to do it again with her to help her continue progression!

Jacob is on date for July 6^th, he is 10 years old and is the daughter of Sarah Chamberlin ( the less active we got to church last week) she is awesome! And she wants both of her kids to be baptized and we haven't met with the daughter (Bella) yet but Jacob wants to be baptized. She is really hoping that his learning about the church will pull him away from his video games because he used to live with his dad and during that time he got addicted to “not 10 yr old boy video games” hah so yeah, he is great!

Those are the ones that we meet with most and are progressing most, so there ya go! I love you all!!

Help the missionaries, not just by feeding them, but by going to teach with them and giving them people to teach! You will be richly blessed for it!

Love, Sister Falkner!

June 17th 2013

Hello everyone!!! :]

Happy belated Fathers Day to all of those Dads that read this!

I had a pretty good Fathers Day. I was thinking a lot of people were probably having a steak and potato dinner and then we went to our dinner appointment, and WaBam!!! steak and potatoes! :] Mmmm it was so yummy!!! and then we got cheesecake for dessert! Super yummy! This ward feeds us soooo much!!! my companion and I are gaining weight by the day! So we decided that for every letter we got via snail mail, we will run a mile! So if you love me and want me to stay skinny?! Snail Mail!!! ;] we had dinner at the Griffith's, they are an awesome family! Both return missionaries and so generous!! Sis Griffith's makes homemade bread every week for the sacrament! How cool is that? And she gave us 4 loaves! It is so yummy!!! we are enjoying it! She also made us T-shirts! That was super cool! This ward just loves and treats the missionaries well! Its really great! We are working really hard at getting to know them better so that we can build up trust and begin teaching their friends! I hope it works! So far, so good!

So, we have the big missionary broadcast this Sunday! Its going to be a historical moment, I know it! My predictions are as follows! :]

1.      CHINA opened up to missionaries ( Jason, they are coming for you!!!!! ;] )

2.      Sisters can extend to 2 years.

3.      And members will be on a higher obligation to help the missionaries. Maybe more missionary related callings?

Who knows! But those are my thoughts and I am sooo excited to hear what President Monson has to say!!! :]

Something super cool that happened this week... We got a less active to church. Yay.... haha.. less active work is not my favorite because that is the job of the members, butttt this one paid of! And I knew it would, so I was willing to do that! We visited Sara Chamberlin before church, we had tried to meet up with her like 10 times and she was never home but we finally caught her at home and we talked for a while, she said she couldn't go to the temple because she had an issue with tithing, and then she just starting crying and saying how much she wants her kids to be taught and baptized, they are 8 and 10! she said Sundays are her only day to clean and that was why she hadnt been to church in a while so we told her we would do all her dishes and clean her kitchen while she got ready for church! She followed us to church and it was so great! I felt like it was just meant for her! She was so happy and felt so good! Then we went to relief society and the lesson was on tithing!!!! what??? I was kind of nervous at first but the lesson was REALLY good and a lot of the sisters bore testimony of the blessings of tithing, at the end of the lesson she leaned over to us and said “where can I find the tithing slips?” it was so awesome, the ward now has a lot more respect for us because we actually got someone to church and now we can start teaching her children! It was just great!

That's all for now! Love you tons!!!! :]

Love Sister Falkner!!