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