What a week! :)

HAPPY VALENTINES!!! <3

Hey all you wonderful family and friends! You are all just so fantastic and i love you so much i hope you know!

My flip by the ohio sign!

It was dark so it is hard to see. 



we found a random pig in the hollars of

Kentucky on exchanges :) 

This week we had quite the experience. It truly just strengthened my testimony though. So we had this investigator that the previous sisters had been teaching for a while. They used to be Jehovah witness then they left that church. This was like years ago. They then prayed and asked God if there was a true church to have them come to their door. The next day missionaries came and knocked on the door. But they still have not joined the church and they have been meeting with missionaries for like 20 years. But anyway before i got here they apparently asked the sisters for geological evidence that the Book of Mormon was true. They told them that there was no evidence except for the Book of Mormon. That wasnt good enough for them. We hadnt seen them in a while because they had some things going on and they were out of town and such. So the other day we decided to drop back by and this was my first time meeting them and he answered the door and said that we could not talk until we got him evidence that the Book was true. So we left and decided to give him a Book of Mormon with a sticky note on it that said "We can not give you evidence only God can" We put it in an envelope and left it on their door step. Well as we were walking away we ran into this guy... come to find out he was a less active that we had never met before that we had been looking for. He lives right next door to this investigator that we took the Book of Mormon to. So we talked to him and he was like come visit with me for a minute and we were like okay so we were following him back to his house when all the sudden this investigators wife comes outside (we were teaching her too) and just starts ripping us a new one. They were yelling and getting so mad at us. We had no idea what was wrong with what we did. So this less active was like get into my house just ignore her. So we go inside his house and we can hear her outside just flippin out. Well then she started knocking on her neighbors doors and telling them what awful people we were and such. We had never seen so many people outside in that courtyard before. She was like getting these people all riled up and everything. The less active was trying to talk to us but we were so distracted with what this lady was doing outside. So he was like come back on Saturday and visit with me and my family. Then he said i will walk you out cause by this time there were a whole bunch of people out there. So he went out first and we followed closely behind him and as soon as we stepped outside it just went silent... and everyone was just staring at us. It was so sickening. Then when we got to our car this less active looked at us and i will never forget the power that came in the words he said to us next he said "You guys just keep going you know what you know and you just keep believing it." That was so powerful. Simple words but they had a power to them. The spirit at that point testified to me once again that what we are sharing with people is so true. There may not be any physical evidence that the Book of Mormon is true or that Joseph Smith truly did see our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and restored the church but i know it because of the witness to me from the spirit. I could never deny the truthfulness of it. 

We are getting excited for these next couple weeks. We have an investigator that is preparing to be baptized on the 28th. Her son and daughter have already been baptized and have had such a great influence on her. They are just amazing! She has been smoke free for 11 days now. We call her every morning at 6:30 and say a prayer with her to help give her strength to withstand the temptation during the day. It is so awesome!! I am so excited for her! She loved the gospel and wants to take her family to the temple so bad. 

Okay for the funny thing that has been happening this week... So me and my companion decided that we are going to try and drink a gallon of water a day.  Which is all fine and dandy and it makes you feel really good except for the fact of how much we are running to the bathroom. Well last Monday poor sister Hatch had to go so bad and we were standing on someones porch. She had her legs crossed and she was like "Sister Davis i am going to pee my pants" Well people say that all the time but dont really mean it. I was just laughing at her and then that made her laugh and all the sudden she looks down and was like "uh-oh"... She was peeing right there as we were standing on this persons porch. So i pushed her off the porch into the grass. Good thing this person didnt come to the door. So we ran back to the car. Luckily it was the end of the night and we had done laundry earlier so we had a towel in the car. So she took her tights off and wrapped up in a towel. We were dying of laughter! 

It has been quite the week. Lots of memories made and fun times to look back on. I am so thankful for my mission and wouldnt trade it for anything in the world. Thank you for all the prayers and love and support. I sure am grateful for you all. Keep staying strong! I love you so much!

Love your sister Davis :)

Miracles at church!!



Sometimes we shoot the elders with marshmellows ;) 

You all are just so wonderful and fantastic and i just love you so much! My goodness i feel like it was not that long ago since i was emailing you all last Monday. The days and the weeks are just flying by! It is insane!

So this week my companion and i wanted to hit a triple double so bad. Which is 10 people at church 10 new investigators and 10 member presents. We had a ton of meetings this week and were relying a lot on God to be able to make it happen. So by Friday night we had 10 committed to come to church on Sunday. Then Saturday morning two of them cancelled. So we spent the whole day trying to commit two more people to come to church with us. Around 8 o clock we still had not been able to find anyone. We had one more appointment for the night and we were just praying that we could get two more. So we went into this appointment and the lady that we were teaching her daughter was there. The previous sisters had been teaching her but she hadnt been there any other time we had come by to teach her mom. So we sat down to teach her mom and her mom was like you are coming to church with me tomorrow. So there was one person out of the two that we needed to find. We had an awesome lesson with them. Then when we were headin out we ran into this guy that we had talked to before and so we went over to talk to him again. Before we could get anything out of our mouths the member that was with us was like "Hey do you want to come to church with us?" and he was like "Yes" Number two right there. It was a miracle! So we go to church the next day and the mom and her daughter show up to church and another investigator that we hadnt seen that week showed up. So we had three at church. Then we get a text from the member that was supposed to pick the other guy up saying that he cant find him. So we are sittin in sacrament meeting and all the sudden our phone starts vibrating and it is the guy so we didnt know what to do and our mission president has asked us not to leave the meetings so we whisper to the member sitting next to us if they could run answer our phone. Luckily it was the member that was with us that invited him to church. So she was out talking to him in the hall then the member that was supposed to bring him to church shows up and comes and sits by us and says that he couldnt find him. Then we get our phone brought back to us by a little girl we didnt know where the member went. So we wait a little bit then all the sudden the member shows up with the guy. So we got four people at church. Which  was a lot better than last week and it was truly by the grace of God that it all happened. Everyone else had their excuses but this next week we are gonna try again. We can resolve the concerns that the other people had and work really hard to get all ten there. It is amazing what happens when you are working with God. 

Okay so we got our car all cleaned up. Haha that took forever to get all the mud off of it. Luckily the car wash people let us go through the car wash twice. But we went back to this house on Wednesday to teach the guy whose yard we tore up. HE IS SO AWESOME!!! He has such a sincere desire to learn. He wants so badly to know how to keep his family safe and strong in this world. He has one little girl who is five and she is going into Kindergarten next year and he said he is scared for her. He said that previous to our visit he had been pondering on the things we shared with him when we first met him. We are going back this Wednesday again to teach him. We are so excited. And we are trying to figure out how to fix the yard still but it will all work out. :) 

Man i wish i could explain to you all the feelings that i have about how much i know this work and this church is truly ran by God. But there are seriously no words that can describe it. I know with all my heart that Joseph Smith is truly a prophet of God. I know that we have a prophet on the earth today. I know the priesthood has been restored and with that comes the power to seal and bind our families together and to God. I am so grateful for this church and i pray that each of you will know and feel of the truthfulness as well. Keep being the fantastic people you are. I love you all so so much!!! 

Love your sister Davis :)

We went muddin ;)

These are our rescuers. 

this is our muddin experience :) 

Wow! What a week we have had :) You are all just so fantastic and i hope you know that! I feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family!


Sister Davis & Sister Hatch

Okay so i got to start off with the funniest story that happened to us last night. So we were having a really rough day. We had struggled getting people to come to church and we just were having a hard day. So last night it was about 8:30 and we had a member out with us contacting some people. It was a little rainy and a little snowy. But we pulled up to this house that sister Hatch felt prompted to knock on. So we pulled in and pulled up to the side of the cars. We were in the grass but it looked like cars had parked there before. We went up and knocked and talked to this guy. He was so nice and agreed to let us come back and teach his family. So it was all well and we were super excited especially after the struggle we were having earlier. So the member we were with took off to our next appointment and we were going to follow him but as i was backing out our tires started spinning in the mud. So my companion told me to drive forward a little bit and back out straighter. So i did but once again our tires started spinning in the mud. So the neighbors yard and the yard we were in connected so we were like oh lets just drive straight out... well that was not a good idea either cause when we put it in drive to try and drive forward we realized it was our front wheel that was stuck and spinnin. Those good'ol front wheel drive cars. So my companion and i decided to switch spots and she got in the drivers seat and i got out and started pushing the car. But it was no good we just kept sinking in the mud. Then to make matters worse i heard police sirens and it freaked me out and i ran and jumped in the car and yelled "The police are coming!" Then my companion started freaking out and we were just screaming and laughing in the car. While all this is going on we were on the phone with the zone leaders cause we needed help. They were laughing at us and didnt think we were serious they thought we were joking with them. So we called a member and they came and tried to help push us out. In the mean time the member we were with came back cause we never showed up to the appointment we were going to. Also the zone leaders came and found us. Well the member we had called to come and help us had parked in front of someone else's house. Well the house that she parked in front of called the cops cause there was a car parked in front of their house. So the cops came to look at the car so the member ran over there and told them how we were stuck in the mud so the cop came over and flipped on his light plus another cop came and flipped on his lights. So by this time we had the two zone leaders there, two members there and two cops there plus sister Hatch and me. So we had this big commotion going on in the front yard of these peoples house that we had just met and they had no idea cause they had been down stairs watching the super bowl. So sister Hatch and i went and told them what happened. Luckily they were nice and laughed at us too. Well we could not get the car out no matter how many of us were pushin. So one of the members called another member to come and see if they could get us out. The cops told us that we would probably have to call a tow and then they left. Then the zone leaders had to go and report some numbers so they left. Then the other member showed up with his truck so the first member we called went home to put her boys to bed. So it was us and two other members plus one of the members little boys. The member decided to hook our car up to his truck and pull us out. But we were so stuck it took the truck pulling and the other three people pushing and one person in the drivers seat steering. We did eventually get out. We have mud everywhere all over our coats all over our car... inside and out. Plus to make it even better the place we got stuck in was freshly planted grass. By the time we got home it was 9:30. We were exhausted.  We decided that will be an awesome conversion story for that family haha ;) What a night. But it was good cause we needed a good laugh ;) 

car teaching :)

Okay now for our amazing experience we had this week. So this member gave us a referral of his friend to go and contact so we did and she said we could come back. Well when we went back she said her house was a mess so we couldnt come inside and we didnt have much time anyway so we were standing out on her door step and decided to give her a quick restoration lesson. She was listening and truly taking it all in. Then we recited the first vision. She just started crying! She told us that she couldnt wait for the day to see Jesus again. She told us that she feels that the day is coming that he will return. We told her that what we share will help her prepare for that day. She told us that we could come back and that she would have the house clean so we could come in and sit down and talk. It was a miracle! The spirit was so strong and she was able to feel it and be touched by it. The church is so TRUE!!! 

I do have to say that the spirit is so amazing! Everytime we have the opportunity to share the story about Joseph Smith and testify of him i just feel this peace and happiness. I know it is so true. I know Joseph Smith restored this church. I know we have a living prophet on the earth today and i know that the priesthood is here on the earth and what a great blessing that is. I know that we have a loving Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ who wants to see us succeed in life. They walk with us. I KNOW IT!!! I have felt them. I know we have angels all around us helping us and protecting us. I know our loved ones arent that far from us. Keep going everyone. Keep enduring. The blessings we all have ahead of us are worth more than any momentary happiness that we would find here on earth. FAMILIES ARE FOREVER!!! I love you all so so much!

Love your sister Davis :)

 

 

Holy Cow! (I have realized i say that a lot now) :) Area: Cincinnati, Ohio Companion: Ashlee Hatch, Layton, Utah

WOW!! How are you all my wonderful family and friends? I love you all so much! This week has
been a crazy miraculous week!!! I cant believe where i am and what i am doing. It is truly by the grace of God that we are able to do his work. So my new address is 6403 Apt 5 Clough Pike Cincinnati OH 45244.

Sister Hatch and Sister Davis

Sister Hatch, Sister Davis, Sister Elmer, Sister Johnson

Okay so when i got to my new are we went to visit the relief society presidents house. She is amazing and fulfills her calling for sure. She was talking to us about decisions in life and how the smallest decision can have a huge impact in the long run. She compared it to the rutter on a boat. She said just a degree turn on the rutter will take you on a whole new coarse on the boat. I thought that was such a cool analogy. It is so true. We all make so many decisions everyday and the decisions that we make set the coarse for which we travel everyday and into the eternities. It is awesome! We also visited another member who is absolutely amazing! She was telling us how her life was so busy. She was telling us how she had gotten out of the habit of reading her scriptures. I guess the stake president had sent out a challenge to the stake to read their scriptures everyday for 30 minutes. And she said that she was just struggling with it so bad. But then she said that she had a thought pop into her head the other day and it was "If i can take 30 minutes to watch TV why can i not take 30 minutes to save my soul?" It was awesome and such a powerful statement. I know it is so true thought that if we just set time aside to study our scriptures, say our prayers, and go to church it will truly save our souls!!! 

Okay so funny story! We were out teaching with this member. We were talking to this random guy on the street. All the sudden you hear this fart. And the member starts slowly backing away and says "Ohhh i got gas" Sister Hatch and I could not contain ourselves we just burst out laughing. This guy we were talking to was giving us the weirdest look. But we were just cracking up!

So we had this meeting on Thursday. It was so awesome! It was for all the missionaries that have six months or less left. President Porter talked to us about what kind of legacy we want to leave behind. It was powerful. We talked about regrets and stuff like that. Something that always confused me was when people would say "Live life with no regrets" I understood that we wanted to live life to the fullest and such but i kept thinking the things i regret in life i have learned some of the biggest lessons from. But president Porter explained it so perfectly. He told us that in life we totally are gonna have regrets. He said if we never regretted anything than we never risked anything and if we never risked anything we never would grow and if we never grew there would be not point to the doctrine of Christ. He said that when we have regrets it is evidence that the doctrine of Christ is alive in our lives. It was awesome and it is so true. It is the doctrine of Christ that changes us. 

Everyday this week has just been full of miracles. I know that God truly provides for all his children. He is so aware of every one. I had an experience this last week again with this. So this last transfer i was made a sister training leader. I was feeling super stressed and super inadequate for the position. So i was studying with this thought in mind and I decided to read "The Hope of Gods Light" from Dieter F. Uchtdorf. As i was reading i read this part that said "It doesn’t matter how unqualified you may think you are or how far behind others you may feel. The very moment you begin to seek your Heavenly Father, in that moment, the hope of His light will begin to awaken, enliven, and ennoble your soul."  Bam!! The spirit hit me so strongly and i felt such comfort come from my Heavenly Father! 

I know that we are all sons and daughters of God! I know he loves each of us and has a very important plan for us to accomplish here on earth. I hope you know that i love each of you so much! Keep at the hard work you all are doing and know that God is with you. Be strong and faithful and i will too. Love you all!!!

 

Love your sister Davis :) 

Leaving Kendallville!

I found heaven in indiana!!! ;) 

Hey all you wonderful family and friends!

Nothin like being in an area for six weeks and leaving. This transfer went by so fast and they just keep getting faster. It is so crazy. I have loved serving here in Kendallville. Everyone here is so loving and sweet. There is definitely a special spirit here in this wonderful little town. 

This week was a spectacular week though. We found out that all the people named Jessica in Kendallville are the nicest people here. Haha! We had found some people named Jessica this week and they were all super nice. So we decided to look at all the people on the potentials list named Jessica and go and contact them. All those ones were nice too and agreed to lets us come back. It was so awesome!

I have learned once again that God is so aware of every single one of His children. For a little while i have felt so disconnected with my prayers. Like i wasnt getting answers and stuff. So i have been studying about praying this week. We also had interviews with the mission president and i talked to him about it. He told me that usually when you feel disconnected it means you arent being completely honest with your Heavenly Father. At first i didnt really understand what he was talking about. Then he explained that i need to tell Heavenly Father exactly how i feel my thoughts my feelings everything. He asked my if i told Heavenly Father that i felt like he wasnt answering my prayers and i said no and he asked my why not? and i didnt know why i hadnt. But then i got thinking about it and i kinda felt like i couldnt say that to God. Then president Porter told me that God already knows how you feel and if you talk to him about it he can help you through it. It helped so much. So that night i knelt down and seriously poured out my heart to my Heavenly Father. IT FELT SO GOOD!!!! Then i contined to study it for the rest of the week and went to church on Sunday and all that was talked about there was prayer too. It was amazing! I know that God truly does listen to our prayers. I dont know why it can be so hard to pour out your heart to Heavenly Father sometimes. But just know that he already knows. He wants you to talk about how you are feeling with him. He wants you to know that he loves you. Just do it! We teach this to people all the time i dont know why it took so much for me to do it too. But i promise it feels so much better when you talk to Him like that. I love my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ! I love my mission and everything that i learn. I love all of you guys and pray for you constantly! Keep smiling and staying strong!!! 

 

Love your sister Davis :)

SNOW!!!!

Sister Elmer & Sister Davis

Hey everyone!

I love you all so so much! I hope you all are staying warm and being safe. I dont know what the weather is like where ever you are at but here it is snowy and super cold. The temperatures dont seem like it would be that cold cause we get those temperatures in Utah but there is this wind chill here that is so cold. It just like freezes everything in its tracks. They have cancelled school cause of how cold it is the buses cant start. CRAZY!! At the beginning of the winter i kept praying that the winter wouldn't last long. That it would warm up fast after the holidays. Then i read this talk that was talking about the enabling power of the atonement and it talked about how when we pray we should pray that we can receive help with our circumstances rather than praying that our circumstances could change... needless to say i have started praying now that my body can adapt to this cold weather. :) But that was a good lesson i learned this week. 

I also had another cool realization this week about receiving answers to our prayers. I was reading a talk in the ensign and it was talking about receiving answers to our prayers. It kinda talked about how Heavenly Father isnt going to give you a play by play of everything you need to do in life but rather he is going to let you decide. That is where the growing takes place. My whole mission i have been praying that Heavenly Father will help me become what i need to become then i ask for guidance in every little thing... which isnt a bad thing but instead i realized that i need to make my own decisions trusting that Heavenly Father will let me know if what i am doing is what he wants me to be doing or not. It is our job though to build that relationship with him. And that is how we will grow and become what we are meant to become. It was a great realization and super comforting. Something i will use for the rest of my life. Also one of the sister training leaders was tellin me that that sometimes in life our prayers go unanswered for a while so when they are answered they will be treasure more. Just as a long searched for treasure is more valuable to you so is a long searched for answer to a prayer. I loved that! 

The cutest thing happened in church yesterday. We were sittin behind this cute little family. They have four kids. The youngest is 3 and the oldest is 11 then the others are somewhere in between there. But anyway the mom was up giving a talk and the dad was doing the best he could to keep the kids under control.The three older ones were doing good but the youngest little girl was givin dad a run for his money. She started jumping on the pew and the dad grabbed her and wrapped her in his arms then he let her go and he was paying attention to his wife speaking but you could see the look in the little girls eye as she sneakily got back up on the pew and eyed her dad and started jumping again. Haha he got her down again and then she had to go to the bathroom. So he took her and then the other kids started playing rock paper sissors. Then the dad came back and set the little girl down and got after the other kids to stop playing that well while his attention was turned to them the little girl kicked her feet up on the back of the pew with her hands on the seat of it and was in a hand stand when the dad turned back around. I was giggling so hard. It was the cutest thing ever! I do have to say though that dad is amazing! And what a trooper he is :) Well everything here is just wonderful. We are having fun and laughing  A LOT!! Sister Elmer is so amazing and such a hard worker. The time is flying by! I love you all so much! you are in my prayers always!! 

 

Love your sister Davis :)

2015 has begun :)

We are out for a district fun day!
Bowling and bbq!
Love your missionaries :)

Hey all you wonderful beautiful and handsome family and friends of mine :) 

I love you all so much and hope you all had a fun safe new year. We definitely did! I set a record for the time i went to bed on new years eve. We were in bed by 9:50! Earliest i have been to bed i think my whole life on new years. But we were exhausted :) haha We had to be in by six and couldnt leave our apartment until three the next day cause of all the crazy things that happen on new years. But our mission president put together a packet thing for us to do while we were inside. It was really neat he had us set goals for what we wanted to become by the end of our missions, what kind of marriage we want, what kind of home we want, and visions for our lives pretty much. It was awesome. I have never felt so prepared going into a new year as i do this one. :) 

So a couple funny things that have happened this week....

First last night we were eating at a members home and she made such a delicious dinner. But she put a ton of vegetables on my plate. There was like zucchini, and broccli, and cauliflower and carrots (which are not bad) and stuff like that. So i grabbed some salt and put it on there thinkin it would taste better with that. Well i could still taste the stuff so i put a little more and a little more on them and then i took another bite and choked a little cause the salt was so strong. So i quit with the salt and just ate them anyway. It was kinda funny but she didnt notice... well i hope she didnt notice.

The other funny thing that happened this week... we went to teach our investigator and we took a male member with us. She is wanting to be baptized so bad but just cant quit some of her addictions that she has and she is living with her boyfriend who is a less active member. He never will come and sit in on the lessons with her. So we took this male member in with us and start talkin and once her boyfriend heard that other males voice he was in there in a snap and participating and everything. We thought it was so funny and everytime we would ask him a question the investigator would chuckle a little and be like "Yeah get him" haha it was so funny. We were crackin up after that lesson. She thought it was pretty funny too that he came out when the male member was there she said that he told her after we left that he was just protecting her but we were all like Uh huh sure he was ;) 

Okay now for the amazing things that happened. We had an awesome experience with one of our newer investigators. The other sisters had been teaching him previously but just wasnt progressing so they didnt see him much. But we went back and he met with us and seems so sincere now. We talked about the restoration and he thought it was amazing. He talked about how he missed his mom cause she had passed away a while ago. The member that we took with us had just recently lost her mom and bore a powerful testimony on how they will see their moms again. He said he wanted that so bad. Then he came to church yesterday! It was so awesome!!! 

This week we were so busy and by yesterday we hadnt found very many people. We needed to increase our teching pool so we planned to whole day to go and see potentials and former people who had studied with missionaries and by the grace of God we found four new people to teach. It was so wonderful!! I love my mission and all the miracle we see everyday! This gospel is truly a gospel of miracles. We see them everyday! I love everything i am learning and i am so grateful to have so much support back home. I love you guys and pray for you always. Keep staying strong :) 

 

Love your sister Davis :)