the first letter i've written as a mom :) HA

Greetings from freezing Ohio!

It’s been a good week! I won’t lie last Tuesday I was having the hardest time of my life focusing because I had SO much nervous energy and I was just so anxious to find out who I would be training. But I did my best & I cleaned the fridge out at the VC so my mind was distracted. Good choice.


Ringing in the new year with my sisters. <3

 

Sister Ellison (from the ward), Chris, Sister Law & me in front of the Whitney store

 So Wednesday morning, I helped Sister Law finish packing her things up and then we headed into Kirtland because I could not handle just sitting around. We stopped by sites and talked with the sisters there and I decided to ask Elder Butterfield for another blessing because my stomach was being like destroyed by butterflies. I told him that I felt bad because I’d just gotten one the week before and he said, “Oh Sister Webb…this will just be the addendum to that one.” Ha. I love that man! And Sister Butterfield! They are the most precious people ever. It really helped to calm my nerves!

It reminded me that the Lord had confidence in me and told me to trust in the things that you know you must do and do them, and then it always talked about my little greenie. It said not to fear, that we have lots of similarities but also differences and that we should use those to make the work go forward. It told me to include her because she’s eager to learn. (Sometimes I don’t like when people do things wrong so I just do them myself….but that’s not happening now!) It also counseled me to become involved in her life and said that she would become a true sister, even after the mission. :) It also said that as I work hard and do those things I know I need to do that I’ll be exemplary among my peers. That’s a pretty neat promise. In short, that addendum was legit!

So at transfer meeting, I met little Sister Stephanie Mayer. She’s so cute! She’s 23 and she’s from Houston so we definitely have a united TEXAN companionship. It’s pretty much the best EVER. I love her enthusiasm and her excitement to do the work! She’s nervous about a lot of things but I told her that I was going to make her jump right in because I wish that my trainer had pushed me more. She’s like “Please do!” We’ve held off on tracting this week because all she had was a peacoat. A peacoat! This isn’t Houston anymore and that little thing is not going to cut it. So later today we’ll get her a coat and some boots and then we’ll get back to finding via tracting next week.


Me & Sister Mayer at sites yesterday.

 So….update on the investigators:

CHRIS

She is doing so well! She truly is going to be baptized on the 21st! I cannot wait! She loves coming to church and she loves meeting with us and her mind is truly being enlarged as she’s studying from the Book of Mormon. It’s been so cool to see.

MAN’TIMA

She’s still trying to organized again in the post-holiday chaos. We only saw her twice this week and yesterday she didn’t come to church because she took Tyrone to the ER. Booooooo Satan. Leave my people the heck alone! We are still working with her and praying for her and she told me that she’s been reading Psalms because she can connect with it. Hooray! That’s better than reading nothing.

JOYCE

Seriously, the woman is ridiculous. She oozes charity and love and kindness. You just can’t help but love her when you see her. It’s crazy! I just want her family to be ETERNALLLLLLLLL. Sister Mayer & I are going to get her & Sarah to come on a church tour. It’s going to happen. Wait for the email to tell you that it is.

ZANE

Zane’s new. He is the grandson of Sister Talley in our ward. Brother Talley (so Zane’s step-grandpa) called on Wednesday morning and said that as he was driving to work, he felt the clearest impression to challenge Zane to take the lessons. So we went and saw him on Thursday. Zane is 15 and he is incredibly intelligent. He was raised to believe that there’s no God. Personally, he feels like he doesn’t know. When I asked if he wanted to know if there was a God, he said, “Sure. Who doesn’t?” We have another appointment to see him this Thursday so I’m praying that we can know how to help him.

KIA

We’ve started meeting with Kia again!!! She’s reading a couple verses a night and praying and she came to church yesterday and my heart almost burst with joy! She turns 14 on Saturday so we’re going over on Sunday to celebrate. Yay!

Also, saddest news of my life. Yesterday, Marcia Passawe came to church. She used to be in the Euclid ward but just recently moved to our ward. Her husband, Alex, was baptized in November and then they got married afterward. Well, I found out from her that Alex has been really discouraged lately and that he’s started going to another church. NO BUENO! We are going to see them tomorrow night and are fasting today in order to spiritually prepare ourselves for that visit. It seriously broke my heart to hear that! I heard all about his progress from the beginning because Sisters Andersen, Barker & Manwaring were in my district so we always talked about him. But no worries, Sister Webb & Sister Mayer + the Spirit to the rescue!

Other than that, we’re still really working on the members. They gave each area a copy of these PMG DVDs and we are going to familiarize ourselves with them by watching them with the Messegees and then show certain clips to the ward missionaries and to members when we have dinners at their homes. It shall be awesome! Haha all of the members were all confused when I showed up with a new companion yesterday. They were like…haven’t you been here longer than the other one? Yeppppp call me Sister Lyndhurst! Except I forgot to tell you…they changed the name of my area! It’s still the exact same area, except it’s called Mayfield now. It makes sense…we serve in the Mayfield ward, we live in Mayfield Heights, the area revolves around Mayfield Rd….you get the picture. So anyway call me Sister Mayfield.

I’m really excited for this transfer. We’re still in Kirtland the same amount of time – all day Wednesday, Saturday & every other Sunday. It’s weird…there are 4 Kirtland sisters out full pros right now…Sister Everson, Sister Scott, Sister Debenham & Sister Golightly. It will be really weird not to see any of them for a while. I’m making a transfer prediction for next time around. Don’t judge. I could totally see Sister Mayer taking over the area and me getting shipped out to Toledo. For real. But that’s not for another 6 weeks and this 6 weeks will be concentrated on TEARING UP MAYFIELD and finding a million investigators and teaching & testifying our guts out and coming home exhausted every night. It will be so great and I am so excited!

Generation pic! Sister Mayer, me & Sister Park

I had Sister Mayer call a few of my friends to get referrals from them. I think in general people don’t really understand what goes on at the VC in the referral center so let me just make that clear. When people come on tour, they leave names & numbers of their friends or family members who aren’t members. We call those friends and tell them that their friend was thinking of them and wanted them to have a free [insert gift here]. We send out different DVDs about Christ or BoMs….different things like that.

Then if they accept, the missionaries in that area get a text sent to their cell phone with the person’s information and they make contact with them and find a time to go by and drop off the item and share a brief message about the gospel. So we don’t just sic missionaries on people….we call people & get permission. The visitors center is the 1st step in the referral process. Sooooo if any of you get a call from an Ohio number….mwahahhaha that’s probably what’s going on. Things are slow right now when we’re in Kirtland. I mean, surprisingly, people actually don’t want to come out when it’s like 18 degrees outside and it’s a blizzard. Weird.

To wrap it up, I love this transfer. I came out with a vision for it that Sister Mayer gave the stamp of approval to:

WORK HARD. LAUGH LOTS. LOVE ALWAYS.

I want to exhaust myself like never before. I want to laugh! I want to have FUN doing the work! And I want love to motivate everything that I do- love for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, love for Sister Mayer and the other sisters I serve around, and love for my investigators.

That’s me. And that’s Mayfield. And that’s life. And it’s SO GOOD! I don’t ever want to not be a missionary. It’s the hardest but I don’t think anything else could be better.

I love you so much! You’re in my prayers. This gospel is true. It has changed my life so much over the last 6 months and has elevated my vision of who I am and the potential I have as a daughter of God and a disciple of Jesus Christ. Let it do the same for you.

Love,

Sister Webb