hello loving family!!

this week was quite an adventure! full of miracles and me getting lost and dragging this poor new missionary around everywhere. but we have fun so it's all good!

just thought i'd tell you one thing i learned this week from one of our investigators. some other sisters were teaching her, but since she lives in our area, they referred her to us so we will teach her now.

the whole time we taught her she was talking about how in church there is one path and how she thinks it's too restrictive and she wants to experience the bad, she wants to live life in a zigzag pattern. and the whole time i was thinking but heavenly father has given us everything to protect us! He gives us these commandments so that we can be more free, so that we don't have to experience the sorrow that comes from the world. He wants us to be as happy as we can and yes sometimes we go off the path and fall down and we can come back but why would we ever want to do that willingly? He lets us know exactly why we should be doing the things that He tells us to do. He gives us everything!

I don't have a lot of time, but just be grateful that we have commandments that protect and allow us to live happier than we could without them. AllHeavenly Father wants is for us to be happy and He even prepares the way for us to be happy! How great is that? He's the best ever!!

Okay have a good week and I'll try to write better emails but I get distracted!! Sorry!!

 

Kay love you

hi family!! this week i have some funny stories for you!!

 

so I'm training and opening which means totally new area. new companion. new ward. no investigators. no anything. our apartment is awesome though. it's on the 30 floor and huge. probably the nicest sister missionary apartment in the mission. we have two bathrooms so pooping is nice. hahahaha don't put that on my blog please. we saw lots of miracles this week and things have been interesting.

so the first night that we get there it took about 2 hours to get home maybe so we drop our stuff off and go to eat dinner at like 8. we sit down and are waiting for our food not really paying attention to anything when this guy is like hey are you from church? and we were like we're missionaries....people get super confused because my companion is korean so they just look at her the whole time and speak to her and i'm the one that answers because she doesn't speak or understand korean (her parents are korean but she never learned the language growing up) but he was speaking english/korean so it was okay. he was talking about how when his grandma died she told him that he needed to believe in Jesus and then after he went to the military he felt like he needed to believe in Jesus. So we told him that that's exactly what we teach about, got his number and then it was kind of awkward after that but that's a different story. it was hilarious. we turns out we live in the same apartment complex (across the street from where we were eating) and we were both going home so he came with us and i was like uh....because i didn't want him to know where we lived. so i was like i have to get my bags from the security office kind of place thing and he's like okay i'll come with you and i was like uhh okayyy....so we picked up my luggage and boxes and it was a ton and i was like dang it he's going to try and help because it's way heavy. so then when we got to our apartment building we were like it's alright we can take it from here. and he's like no it's so heavy i'll help you. and i was like NO PLEASE IT'S OKAY!!! but finally i had to be like yeah you can't come to our house and he's like oh okay see ya. it was a little awkward and me being awkward by myself probably just made it worse. but we got home safely and hopefully he forgot which building we live in....anyways met him later in the week and turns out he wants to teach us korean and then wants us to teach him about Jesus Christ. So it's a win win. Miracles!!

 

 We met some black guys from Saudi Arabia maybe? It was super hard to understand his accent, but he wants to come to church with us so hopefully when I call him I can understand what the heck he's saying.

Then met this other guy from Egypt who didn't speak English very well so we had a whole conversation through a translator on his phone and it was super sketchy like I'm pretty sure he wanted something we couldn't offer....but i told him the Elders would call him!!

Sunday one of our ward members told me that I looked like Megan Fox. almost had a heartattack. Thank you but i do not. So far I've gotten Haylie Duff, Audrey Hepburn and now Megan Fox. Quite the collection.

Then another member told me he wanted to give me a puppy stuffed animal (he's like 30 years old) and I was like oh can I have a dinosaur and hes like yeah i think i'll give that to a pretty sister missionary and i was like .....so that's not me? and he's like mmm there's a prettier one in another area.-___- haha thaaaaaanks.

 

This week I was studying in Ether about the Brother of Jared. Mom I know why you love it so much. It's an amazing story and I just feel like it relates so much to everything in life. I just love the scriptures so much. I learn so much from them everyday and I know that there is a real spiritual power and real spiritual strength that we gain from reading the scriptures that we cannot get anywhere else. Just wanted to talk about a couple things that I learned from the story. 1) The Lord LET there be light in the barges. He could have easily taken away the light and the people could have been in darkness but the Lord didn't want them to be in darkness so he caused for there to be light. Sometimes in life we can't provide our own light and things feel dark, but the Lord never wants us to be in darkness so He provides the light for us. 2) the barges were being led towards the promised land. despite being tossed to and fro and crashing in great waves, they were always being led towards the promised land. sometimes i'm sure they felt like the promised land was too far away or wondered when they saw vast amounts of water how they could possibly reach land, but the Lord knew where they were and was leading them. The Lord always knows where we are and He is always pushing us towards the promised land, whatever that may be for us at the moment. yes we get tossed to and fro, yes sometimes we have no idea where we are, but the Lord knows and He is pushing us towards our promised land. 3) in the depths of the sea, NOTHING could hurt them because they were sealed tight like unto a dish. they were still in the depths of the sea, the circumstances never changes, they were still undergoing large tempests and crashing waves, but because they were sealed tight like a dish (momma your favorite line) nothing hurt them. Sometimes we can't change our circumstances, but we can trust the Lord and know that if we seal our testimony to the Lord, nothing will hurt us.

I love the Lord and I love the gospel. The experiences I've gone through have strengthened my commitment to the Lord and to this gospel. If no one else, I've converted myself. Hope you all can experience the same conversion or have experienced/are still experiencing the conversion to the gospel every day.

Love you so much. I need your prayers.

See you soon.

 

SIster Blickenstaff

hey i get to call home soon!!

hi family!! okay sorry sorry sorry i am so sorry. i haven't told you anything about anything for like the past forever. mother has brought me to repentance. i will try to fill you in.

the past six weeks has gone by soooo fast seriously. we're at a new transfer and guess what? I get to train! i am so excited. also I'm going to a new area where there have never been sisters before so I'm opening the area. aka we will have no investigators and lots of time! but that's the best!!

Working with Sister Han turned out to be really good. She is a great missionary and so converted to the gospel and she was a great example to me. I can't believe that only after one transfer I am leaving. at the beginning we were just companions. and we worked fine together. she was senior companion and she takes that pretty seriously so i was kind of just there to go along with whatever she planned. it was good but it wasn't really fun. so then i decided that i would try to become her friend. i mean missionary work is hard enough but if you don't have a friend to do it with it just is the worst. so I really tried to be loving and have fun with her and the last half of the transfer has been so fun! we've had so many funny moments together and we've become friends and i think it was such a blessing.

we had an interesting experience this past week that was tough for both of us. aka i was just reminded of all the scriptures that talks about how those who persecute the followers of Christ will receive their reward in the end. we went to go visit a house that supposedly a member lived at but he is not active so we were going to see if he still lived there. so we got there and the lady told us that he didn't live there but we can never tell if they're lying. so we went down to there mailbox and turns out he does live there. so we went back to the apartment to put a message on his door and the lady came out and freaked out us. we put a picture of the ward missionaries on the door and she ripped it off and threw it on the ground. she was yelling and pushed my companion and then reached in my companion's pockets and pulled out phone and called the police. Sister Han was trying to explain that we just came to visit because her husband is a member but she would not listen to us and she kept yelling and she didn't understand who we were. Her eyes were so dark and her mouth was kind of bloody. we knew that his wife was sick but we didn't know what was going on. she was just yelling at us the whole time while we were waiting for the police to come. finally they came and as the lady and my companion were talking you could distinctly tell the difference between the two. the lady was fuming mad and my companion was just quiet and trying to help the misunderstanding. it was a very scary situation. and i can't quite describe it but the feeling was just so wrong. i was holding it together until i looked at my companion and her eyes were all red and she was trying to hold back tears which automatically made me start crying. i was praying so hard that everything would be alright and that the police would understood us. and they did because the lady turned out to be an alcoholic and struggling and so the police escorted us out and you could tell they felt bad for us. expecially since i was a foreigner i think. but it was just a crazy experience but it made me proud to be a missionary. in the weirdest way. i was grateful to take that harshness and to know that i was being persecuted for christ's sake. and to know that he endured so much more for me.

okay i love you and i wish i could write more but i have to go time's up!! hopefullly i'm alive next week! love you tons. bye!!!

hello family! i guess i should write a big email...i don't remember the last time i did...my bad. i just email you all individually and i like that a lot more honestly haha. but anyways. everything is going pretty good here! we have the cutest investigator i think i told you about her already maybe. anyway she's eleven korean age which i realized the other day means she's like 9 in american age. but she lost her tooth the other day and told me to take it back to america with me and have the toothfairy send her presents because they don't believe in the toothfairy here. but anyway she's so sweet. it's hard preparing her for baptism because she's so young, but hello we were baptized when we were eight! and how did we learn? from reading and learning about the book of mormon stories and going to church. she's super cute when she prays, they are so sincere and remind me of how i should make my prayers more sincere.

 

okay well don't have much to say....i was going to write about something that i studied this morning or this week but i can't remember. sorry! til next week!

 

love you!