November 14, 2011

Funny story, we went to the nursing home on Monday and there are people who have dementia and all types of mind disorders and this one guy he walks past us with his head down and then he looks up all of a sudden and sees sister Ford first and immediately says, "Oh, your pretty." Then he looks and me and says, "And you are Gorgeous." haha. an old man flirting with us. Is that in the mission rules. :) I hit my toe on the metal part of the shower this week. It hurt and now I have a bruise on my toe. I have two awesome blisters on my hands from doing service for a lady. We raked her yard for her. There was a TON of leaves and we are not even done. I have never had to rake before so it is quite the experience. You get a good workout while doing it. On Wednesday we pretty much dropped everyone that was not progressing, investigators and less actives. So now we have tons of time to tract and it is kind of a daunting task. I am praying that people will want to listen to us. Hopefully we can get more people to teach. :) The one event that I can think of writing was a very scary event. It happened Saturday morning. I have been working on a puzzle that we have at the house (yes mom it is weird to do one while i am doing it and yes we have done this puzzle before). At 9:30 I was sitting down workin on the puzzle and all of sudden we hear footsteps outside and they come up to our door and they start banging on the door, then messed around with the mailbox, then banged on the door again, messed around with the door knob (the door was not locked due to our forgetting to lock it) and then the person banged on the door once again. While this was happening all I could do was to stare at the door and start praying that he won't come in. After a while of staring, I thought to grab the phone and the "dog spray" which is pepper spray. I was armed and ready to strike if the guy ended up coming in. The knocking stopped. The guy went away. My heart then started to pump so hard. I was very scared. but the fear stopped. I locked the door and everything was well the rest of the night. Yesterday, we get another knock on the door but it was friendly knock. I was still nervous to open the door on account of what happened the night before. I open it to John. John John John. He is quite the fellow. He had been in jail for the past two months. He is one of those people that everyone knows because he makes his presence known. He is a really nice fellow. The first thing he says to us, "I am sorry that I scared you the other night." I got so upset I think at him inside. He was the one that did that. I was not very pleased. But I am glad to know who it was and know that someone is not trying to get us. haha. It won't happen again...I hope. :) That is really all that happened this week. I am in Salem for my last transfer with Sister Ford. We will get more investigators this week. I hope you have a great week ahead. I love you all, Sister Amanda Ralph

November 7, 2011

Holy smokes, this is taking forever. It is one of those days where I think Satan is not going to email the family. We came at the original time that we usually come but every computer was taken. We came back in an hour and now it is taking a very long time to get onto the email. It is kind of frustrating. But I am going to be typing the letter on word and then attaching the letter to save some time.This week was pretty eventful. We were not able to teach a lot of lessons or find any new investigators but we had fun with the week.We went on a hike Halloween day and it was so much fun. I have not been hiking in such a long time. It was definitely worth it. We passed out some candy that we had gotten from other people that we really did not want to eat and it was fun to see all the trick of treaters.One day we were going to go teach Maryah and we walked to her house to find that her grandma’s car was not there and that meant we would not be able to meet with her even if she was home. We kept approaching the house and wouldn’t you know, the grandma pulls up. MIRACLE. J So then we stand there and wait for maryah to get out and her brother was yelling at her and for a moment I thought he was going to attack her and hurt her. I was going to jump in front of her if that happened. Her brother is one troubled boy and he is only 15 years old. I don’t really know how to help him. We also got to watch the Joseph Smith movie with her on Saturday and it went well. She colored her hair black and it looked so good. I was very surprised at how it made her look so much more mature. It was way cute.Thursday was wet and cold. It rained all day and we were out pretty much all day. We went around and passed our invitations to a lot of people. The invitations were for what took place yesterday and will tell you about that later. I don’t think that Sister Ford was too pleased to be going out but we went out anyways.Something else awesome happened on Thursday night. I figured out that I lost my wallet. How awesome is that? I am a nobody right now. Haha. No drivers license, no social security number, no nothing. It kind of feels weird to be going around being a random person. Sister Ford is driving now and I get to relax and be the passenger. It is pretty nice actually. Hopefully everything will work out in the end.We went to district meeting and I had a heart to heart with sister mikami and it felt so good to talk to her. She listened to all the stress I was feeling. The wallet being the top of the list. I didn’t feel all that worried about it but now today, I am very much getting stressed about it for some reason. Everything will be just great though. I know it will. But something cool happened after district meeting. We usually go to wende’s to eat and we were in line (six of us) and this guy comes up and says, “can I buy your food for you?” Sister Mikami and I looked dumb founded. Who would just come up to us and say if they could buy our food? The guy said that he was a member. Then all looks of confusing dashed from our faces. That was such a nice guy. I was thinking inside, “He knows I lost my wallet and don’t have any money.” Of course he didn’t but it is cool that he was part of a miracle and he has no idea. Later that day we tried to find the wallet again but no luck. I am sure I lost it on Wednesday when we got a card for an investigator who is going through a hard time. I think I tossed the wallet in the car and it feel out of the car onto the parking lot and I didn’t pay attention and then later on someone picked it up and is now having fun with it. Or maybe they are a trustworthy person and they saw my address on my drivers license and are sending in to the home. I am hoping for the second option.Sunday night we had a music fireside. It was a pretty good turnout. The songs were all wonderful and the spirit was very present in the songs that were played. I didn’t know it was so stressful until I came home from it and I felt like a burden was lifted. There were a couple non-members there and each one of them thoroughly enjoyed it. I am hoping that we will be able to teach them sometime soon. There were so many people there that I know that were not from the ward. Sister and Elder Foote from Tell City came. With them were sisters Waite and Goodman (two of my companions) and Daneen Hinkle. Daneen is going to be going on a mission and I am so excited to hear where she is going to go. It will be fun. I played a poor wayfaring man of grief by jon Schmidt. It turned out really well. I only messed up once because my hands were sweaty and they slipped of a note. Haha.I love you all very much. Nothing else has really happened. I can’t wait to see you December 21st!!!! Love, Amanda

October 31, 2011

So this week nothing really has happened except for Zone Conference (ZC). ZC was really fun. It is always fun to get together with alot of missionaries. There is not so much pressure. We learned alot in ZC on how to be better missionaries and how to follow the spirit more in asking questions that will get the investigators to express their concerns about not coming to church, not reading the book of mormon, not praying, etc.... We are having alot of troubles with our investigators here. They are just not keeping their commitments and it is getting very frustrating. We need to somehow figure out what the concern is besides 'being busy.' Hopefully we can figure that all out this week. During ZC I had the wonderful opportuinity to do two things. 1) I got to play my Praise to the Man song again. It went really well for the most part. I messed up on the climax part of it all so to me it didn't go as well as I would have liked it to but everyone loved it. They were very surprised that I had composed that song. 2) Since I am going to be leaving before another ZC come along, I had the opportunity to bear my testimony for the last time in that kind of setting. There were about 6 others that had that opportunity to do it as well. It was SO scary though. I was the first one to bear mine and going up to the pulpit was nerve wracking because you all of a sudden of this realization that you are going to be leaving for home pretty soon. There is a member family here and their last name is the Ready's. They are such a cool family and I love it. Just a traditional mormon family is what I call it. haha. Brother Ready's father was going to move in with them for a while so we had the chance to move all of his stuff from the UHAUL to the garage and it was fun. I would much rather help people move than to clean a house. Brother Ready's dad is not a member but we are hoping that we will be able to teach him soon. Mr. Ready is going to be a good member when we get to see him baptized. :) I called Sister Woodbury this week because of my headaches. The headaches were not being really friendly with me. So I called and she told me to call the area doctor and he asked me a few questions and then he told me to do a couple other stretches. I have not had major headaches this week as I have for the past month and I am so relieved by that. I just wonder why they all of a sudden went mostly away. It is like I finally complained about it to someone and now that I did I am getting better. That happens to me alot. It must be a mind trick or something. Or maybe it has something to do with the stretches. I don't know. Sunday was pretty bad though. I started to get a pretty big headache but it went away before it got too bad thankfully. Well, nothing else major happened. We are trying to find more people to teach and so far it is not going as well as I would like it to. We keep finding people but they are not following through. Lots of tracting is ahead of us this week and it is going to be awesome! I am reading in Alma now and that is one of my favorite books .There is just so much to learn in these chapters. Something stuck out to me today and I want to share it will you. It is in Alma chapter 28:13 and 14. Before this chapter there are a whole bunch of wars going on. Chapter 28 is the commencement of the 15th year of the reign of the judges and tens of thousands of people have died already. verse 13 is talking about the evil people that have killed the righteous people but we can relate it many other things in our day. "And thus we see how great the inequality of man is be cause of sin and transgression..." I think that is so true. There are tons and tons of babies today that are born into families that are not good (that do drugs for a living) and those babies grow up to follow the example of the parents and they don't really know exactly what is right. They become people that do drugs because they don't really know any better. It is very very very sad. They almost have an unfair advantage compared to others who have been taught to live righteous lives and it is all because "...the power of the devil, which comes by the cunning plans which he hath devised to ensnare the hearts of men." Verse 14 gives us purpose in our lives though. It says, "And thus we see the great call of diligence of men to labor in the vineyars of the Lord." That hit me. There are so many bad things happening in the world today and we need to be out there trying as hard as we can to help the people that don't know what is right and what is wrong. I think one of the biggest thing in the world that needs to be brought back is the observance of the Sabbath Day and keeping it holy. There are just so many people who do not keep the sabbath day holy and it has become 'just a day' to them. Nothing special about it. It is sad. Very very sad but WE all can do something about it. We can teach our friends and invite them to church and help them on their way. :) I love you all. I don't have very much time left. Today is howloween and we are going to be going hiking with our district. I am excited for it but my companion is not so excited. :) Have a great week, Amanda

October 24, 2011

So, this week started off by me getting a hair cut. It was very much needed and I love it. I was a little nervous to get it cut by someone else than mom so I was putting a lot of trust in the hands of someone else. Luckily I like it and she did a great job. I did not like the fact that I had to pay 20 dollars for it though. That was the bummer part of it all. I will try to get a picture to you all soon. This week has been a whirldwind of weather. Weather here does not know what to be. One day it will be super cold and the next day it will be perfect weather. When it is perfect weather you are expecting it to be cold so you wear a sweater and then you are just hot. The beginning of the week was horrible because it was in the mid 40s and the wind was blowing. I came to the realization that the only time you can really feel your ears is when they are frozen and the start to tingle. :) Also one day, we were walking and it looked like it was going to rain so we brought our umberellas with us as we walked to the nursing home and good thing we did because while we were walking back it started to pour on us. The 19th of October marked the day that I will be leaving the mission in two months. Time has really gone by fast. The more busy you are, the more time goes by. It really is true. There is a funny saying though that missionaries use. Days feel like weeks and weeks feel like days. I can tell you that is exactly what it is like. I am excited to be coming home. You want to know why? I want to see you, my family. It has been far too long. There are so many missionaries out here that are going around the fact that they are leaving pretty soon and I think that is...not cool. A mission always ends. I am very proud that I was able to serve a mission and that I can say that I have done well and that Heavenly Father can be proud of my service to him. I am not looking at the end of my mission wishing I could be out longer because I had not served Him well or I have not accomplished what I was sent out to accomplish. That is what I feel about leaving a mission. Of course I am going to be a missionary when I get home. Just as a missionary in my mission once said, "I am just going to be an undercover missionary." :) We met with Maryah this week and the most amazing sentence came out of her mouth. She wants to be a missionary!!! Woohooo!!!! :) Sister Nelson has given me more good news abou Corbin, Kentucky (my previous area). Do you remember Sherry at all? Well, she and I had a great connection and she was very saddened that I was leaving. She was bawling. Well, she got baptized!!!! I was so very very very very happy that she got baptized. Then another guy who we were teaching has set a baptismal date. He is a guy that I did not know how we were going to be able to get him baptized but they did it. He is going to be baptized november 5th. But there is a cool story about him about gaining revelation in church. He likes to drink beer and he was very concerned about that because he did not know if he would be able to get rid of it. Well, as he was sitting in sacrament meeting, God made it known to him that he would not have any problems with alcohol again. That story gave me goosebumps galore. I was crying as sister Nelson was talking all about him. I even put the letter in my journal so when I get home I am going to be reading that letter to you all. :) I finished my third mission journal this week and I am on to another one. How exciting! Have you noticed that I am putting alot of smiley faces at the end of paragraphs? haha. We have a new invetigator named Jemermy Hobson. He is a nephew to a member here. I hope the meeting that we have tonight with him will go well. :) Ahhh! another smiley face.
Love Sister Ralph

October 17, 2011

This week was a pretty good week. Not too much has happened. This weekend was good though because I learned alot. Missionary 101. Expect to have ups and downs. I had to learn that again this week. One up is that we found two very good potential investigators. They seemed awesome. We went back and...they were not answering their door even though they were home. :) oh people. Someone this weekend told us, "Don't give up on the human race." That has been in my mind ever since. Don't give up on the human race. There is bound to be more people out there that will hear us right? :) We got a suprise this week. We had just gotten in for a dinner break and I was staring out the window. These kids were across the street and one of the kids had a pot of flowers in their hands. They were attempting to cross the street and I was beginning to wonder if they were for us. I was thinking, "Awww, the next door neighbors were being nice and telling us that we were good people and good neighbors." haha. but then I thought, "that would not happen." But the kids started crossing the street and they walked to our door. Strange. I answered the door and the kid said, "Are these for you?" I looked at the name on the vase and it had sister ford's name on it. They were for her. We took the flowers and shut the door and were very happy. I was happy sister ford got flowers and she was happy because they were from her family. :) We found Santa's REAL hiding spot. He is stationed on Master Street in Salem, Indiana. :) We knocked on that door and he answered and had a bright cheerful voice and plump face. I am going to get my hair cut real short today. I need the haircut real bad. Wish me luck. I hope it turns out well. Here are a few things that I thought was cool during sacrament meeting. "We were not sent to just be born. We were sent to also endure to the end and return to Heavenly Father." There was a story about an old pilot, and a bold pilot. One guy was observing and said to old pilot master, "You always have old pilots, and bold pilots but not old bold pilots. Why is that?" the old pilot said, "the bold pilots will learn in time." "what does that mean?" "Let me tell you of a time when someone was purchasing a ticket to go hunting. They got the ticket and got a bold pilot. The bold pilot was not being careful and was not thinking of the passengers he had on board and crashed into the side of a mountain. All died in the crash. That is why there are no old bold pilots. The bold pilots have learned the hard way and many have not made it through well." I thought that was a cool story. I don't remember it exactly but I liked it alot. "Don't live your life thinking about what you could have become." "Do we gain experience by not trying? No. You have to do something to gain experience." :) that is what I learned. I hope you all are doing well. Have a great week. Sister Amanda Ralph

October 10, 2011

I forgot my journal again so I will have to go off of memory of what happened this week. I don't really think too much has happened throughout the week besides stress but this weekend was superb! This weekend Maryah Jonas got baptized. It was one of the most amazing baptisms I have ever had. It was very spiritual. On saturday, we got everything set up for the baptism. We did not start filling up the font soon enough though. The water ended up being a little cold for her. I felt bad about that. Did you know that it takes an hour and a half to fill up the font if you want it to be warm? That is a long time. The person baptizing Maryah, was Brother Hamilton. It turned out that he could not fit into any of the jump suites that he had and so he had to send his son to get his white temple pants. So the baptism didn't start on time. But all was good. There was a talk given by Sister Blackwell about Baptism. It was really good. Then Maryah got baptized and it was one of the best feelings to see her get baptized. She needed to be baptized for a long time. Then afterwards, we had a musical number given by the young women. It was also very good and after wards, the young woman president gave a talk on the holy ghost. She was crying so hard and Maryah was crying hard as well. I went to sit next to Maryah to comfort her. The spirit was very stong. I have not seen so much crying at a baptism before. Maryah was so very happy and you can see her countenance change. Yesterday was the day she got confirmed. She is a very special young lady. Brother Hamilton confirmed her as well and he was crying throughout the whole thing. The blessing told her of how special she was, that she was going to be an instrument in bringing many into the church, she would have the spirit of discernment, and that Heavenly Father loved her very much. That blessing even brought me to tears. Overall, I am certainly glad that I am a freind to Maryah. Johnny. We have not seen him. We had another appointment with him and this time he was not there. :( I think he found out that we were 'mormons.' That is such a bummer. We are in desperate need of more investigators who are elect and are wanting to hear about the gospel. We are lacking alot right now. We need to find new areas to tract and eventually we will feel prompted in where we are needing to go. Something funny happened this week that brought me a lot of laughter. I was getting a drink of water from the fridge and Sister Ford was looking in the cupboard for something to eat. She moved something in her cupboard and all of a sudden, time seemed to go into slow motion, and a box of her rice fell out and landed on the counter. The rice in the box flew EVERYWHERE. It was very funny at the time. I imagine it being like coming out of a chapel after being married and people throwing rice on them. That is all that I can remember that happened this week. Everything becomes a blur to me. Good thing I keep a journal and write in it every night because if I didn't, I would not remember my mission. :) I am about to finish up my third journal this week concerning my mission. It is a very exciting thing. I love finishing journals because it make you feel like you have accomlished alot. I love you all very much. Have a greatly superb wonderful terrific week! Sister Amanda Ralph

October 3, 2011

So, this week has been a great week. I got my greeny this week. Her name is Sister Ford. She is an amazing prepared missionary. She is from Layton, Utah. She has 4 siblings. 2 bothers, 2 sisters. She is five foot 9 inches tall. It makes me feel like I am around Tessa again. :) We had a miracle while tracting for her first time. We knocked on a door and this biker dude came out with a cigarrette in his hand with a long beard and long hair. I was not scared. He had a special spirit to him. His name is Johnny. He said that he actually had been thinking about coming back to church but had not really found one he wanted to go to. So he said that he would love to talk to us but at a later time because he needed to take his wife to work. (He's married. :) thankgoodness). So we set up another time and went on our way. Then we were walking back down the street and johnny approaches us and shakes our hand and says that he was not joking with us and that he WOULD been there on saturday. He said that he wanted to learn and thought that we were an answer to his prayers. I was starting to tear up after he said that. It was definatly a good thing to hear. We went to see him on saturday and he was there. But his wife was not so we were not able to go into the house. I so wanted to be an elder at that time. Johnny is sooooo elect and it would have been nice to disregaurd the rules for an hour. But we didn't break any rules. We were going to teach him outside but it was getting cold and he didn't want to stay outside. So we set up another time with him. I have been doing really good about hurting myself this week. I saw a dog and it was stuck on this pile of cement bricks. The leash got stuck. The dog was trying to get himself unstuck and was almost there because two to the bricks were broken and could move. So, I went over to try to free the dog and right as I was going to touch the brick, the dog pulled with all its might and he freed himself and then where did the brick go? Right onto my big toe. I felt it hit my toe and it didn't hurt as much as it should have. Then I moved the brick and that is when it started hurting. The blood was pumping. I didn't say anything though. We were at an investigators house and I don't like people to know that I am hurting. We were leaving anyway. I walked to the car like nothing happened. Making sure that I was not limping. I got in the car and sister ford got in the car and she shut the door and then I said, 'That hurt soooo bad!!!" I was very much hurting. My toe felt ten times bigger even though it did not look bigger. Sister Ford gave me props because even she did not know I was hurting. She thought the brick missed my toe. haha. Serves me right for helping a dog right? Then a couple days ago, I was going to go upstairs and I didn't raise my foot high enough and I stubbed my other toe and somehow I just fell up the stair and hit my chin and my hand was trying to help my not hit the stairs and when my hand was in the attempt to help me, it hit the railing really hard and I just fell flat on my face. I was very worried that I broke my hand. I hit it hard and it hurt soooo bad. I have a bruise on it. It is the bone right below the index finger on my left hand. Good thing it is a sturdy bone right? haha. We set a baptism date with Maryah. It is going to be this Saturday. She is way excited for it. We think that she is ready to be baptized. For some reason though, the ward seems to be dragging their feet. It is pretty frustrating. It feels like we are almost pulling teeth to get them to help us out. I am excited for maryah. She is going to have a great day. I witnessed a robbery this week. How exciting! It was not at a bank. It was at a members house. We were mowing her lawn and we got done and it was way dark. 8:00 and it is dark how crazy is that? So we were on our way out of her house after drinking some root beer and I heard a plastic bag and then I heard footsteps and then i turned around and there was a boy with a big backpack on and he was running away as fast as he could. I got so mad inside. What it the world was he trying to get? I don't know how people don't feel guilty stealing something. I guess some people just do it enough that it is just common for them do to. Conference was way super good. I loved pretty much all of them. It surprised me alot by how much Elder Hales has gone down hill. He has gained so much weight. I feel sad for him. I was greatful that he spoke though. I really liked his talk. I also liked Elder packers talk. He just laid it all out for us. What we need to do. I love you all very much. There is not very much time for me to write. I hope you all enjoyed this weekend as much as i did. Now it is time for us to prepare and practice all the things that were mentioned in the talks. Have a great week, Sister Amanda Ralph

September 26, 2011

So pretty much my memory is going way bad and I really cannot think of what happened this week except for the weekend. The weekend was way super good. It is time for transfers again. Saturday was the start of the good weekend. we were tying to stay busy in the morning time and we were trying to think of some things to do. We went to a referals home to deliver a thing they ordered but they were not home. Then we did a couple other things, had lunch, and went to the nursing home to visit some people. We stopped by on our way home to a store to get some fudge because we wanted some. During this whole thing, we were waiting for transfer news. While in the store we got the call. The whole week I had a feeling that I was going to be training and Sister Waite would be leaving. Sister Waite thought that nothing would change. Well, we got the fudge and answered the phone and we heard the news. I am training and Sister Waite is leaving. I was not as shocked as Sister Waite was. She was very surprised and not happy. She started crying. She even accused the district leader to be messing with her. It was strange because usually if you train, you get a call from the mission president. Well, I didn't. So it was strange. We went to the Relief Society broadcast and it was super super good. I loved everything about it. President Uchtdorf's talk was very very very very good. It touched my heart and if you have not heard it, you better read it when it come out. :) Sister Mikami and Sister Ash are staying in the district so I will be able to see them. The next morning I got a call from President Woodbury and he said that I was training. So it was official. I am glad to be training. I don't mind it. We went to church and everyone was sad that sister waite was leaving. We had a lot to do that day. We visited people like crazy. We had a good lesson with Jane. Jane is doing so well and is still striving to make her life the best it can be. We went to a mission home fireside with a recent convert named Tina. It went well. There was a family who was asked to speak about their conversion story and it was very inspiring. President Woodbury talked to Sister Waite about transfers and it was very surprising. She is being sent back to Tell City, Indiana (my first area and her first area). It is kind of weird for her to do that. This will be her first and third area. :) I kind of feel bad for her because it is another hard area. But she is being sent for a reason. She will be companions with Sister Goodman which will be interesting as well. I am going to be praying hard for both of them. :) So that was pretty much the whole weekend. One morning this week we went running in the rain. I loved doing it. Sister Waite didn't as much. It just brings back so many memories. One of running with Tori in the rain, and another of the last soccer game I had in the rain. I guess it was not the smartest idea in the world though because now I am getting a cold. Hopefully it will not get too bad. We have a ton of stuff to do today so I am going to go. We are going to make cookies today for people and going out to lunch with a member and visiting alot of members. It is going to be pretty crazy. I hope we get everything done today that we need to. Wish us luck. I love you all. Love Sister Amanda Rose 'Princess' Ralph. :)

September 19, 2011

AHHHHH!!!!! We are already in our 6th week of the transfer. Another transfer is around the corner and I have no idea what is going to happen. I wonder if there are any new sisters coming in, if Sister Waite is leaving or staying, if Sister Mikami is leaving the district. So many things to wonder about. Time really is going by so super fast. Did you know that time goes by even faster when there is good weather outside? It has not been hot outside for quite some time and it is very very nice. Two weeks ago is when the good/cold weather came. In one day we went from 95 degrees to 60 degrees. Believe me, it was very cold and I didn't like the change. It has been about 60 degrees in the morning and warms up to the 70's during the day. It was way nice. I love having Fall weather. You definatly do not get it in Arizona like you do here. It is probably way hot still. A couple weeks ago we were walking and this lady and her son who is about 5 years old, were walking toward us. The boy calls out, "hi. what's your name." we tell him our name and he pauses for a little bit and then he says, "Do you want to be friends?" :) How cute is that? It reminded me how I met Allison Lee for the first time. I used exactly those same words. Do you want to be friends? haha. Good memories. Maryah is not doing as well as I would hope. She seems to have taken a step backwards for some reason. We are trying to figure out how it is we can help her. Hopefullly we can figure it out soon. This week we did a fun service. We helped make a few bracelets for a member who was way stressed. I made a bracelet and 4 keychains. I kept one so I will show you it when I get home. it was way fun and it made me want to do it when I get home. :) I got a package from Toby and Emily this week. It was a way cute shirt and I love it so much. Thankyou Toby and Emily! SKUNK ATTACK...almost. We were walking home from an appointment last night and it was so dark outside. We got onto the street that we live on and as we were walking we heard this noise and looked down to see an animal eating something. I was thinking that is was just a cat. I will write down my thought process to you. "oh, it is just a cat eating something," it looks up at me and the tail comes up, "oh, that is not a cat. it is a skunk. how nice. wait, maybe I should be running, yeah, run...run away!!!" So I finally started to run away. It felt as if that skunk had me entranced. I was just staring at it for the longest time. I ran behind a car and I was very very very grateful that it did not spray. The skunk left and we continued to walk. I wondered what we could have done if we got sprayed. There is not much you can do about the skunk smell. So this weekend we had a musical concert. It was on Saturday. It was very fun. It was in Charlestown, which is 30 min away from Salem. There was so much preperation in it. All the missionaries in the district were performing. Naturally, I was the one playing the piano for all of the missionaries, there was 4. In addition to that, I played a piano solo. Of course I did my Praise to the Man. By the end of the night, I was exahusted. I forgot how much music can get you tired. I was putting my heart into playing those songs. My favorite was to play my song, and the song that Sister Mikami and Elder Nebeker sang. They sang Come Thou Fount, of Every Blessing. It was a very difficult version of that song. It was way neat though. I got the piano part down after a little bit a practice. It was way intense. My song was AMAZING. I know I know, I am very humble. haha. But it truely was. A couple elders told me afterwards that they buckeled up because they knew it would be amazing. I am kind of glad that I did not write the whole song down before I left because i added a way awesome part to it. It gets really intense and really fast at the end. I got alot of comments on it. :) Sister Nelson sent me a letter this week and it had way good news about Corbin Kentucky. All the loose ends I felt I had when I left are being tied up slowly. We were teaching Mary Smith. She is Judy's mother. She left on a trip and I left while she was gone. Mary said that she would be going to a baptist church to see if she liked it. I was praying so hard that she would come back and have the desire to come into the church that has all truth in it. Well, she came back. And this is what she said, "Guess what? I want to be baptized." woohoo. So Mary got baptized on September 10th. I was way excited to hear that. And Sherry set a date for october 15th. I am so so so so happy about that. I have no more time left. I love you allLove amanda.

September 12, 2011

So, I tried to send an email earlier this morning and when we got here, people obviously do not like each other because they were sitting every other computer. We needed two computers next to each other so we can see each others monitor. (mission rules). So we waited for a half hour and gave up waiting and just came later.

This week was a pretty good week...oh man. I forgot my sticky note with the things that I wanted to tell you all about. Now I am just going to have to remember which is a hard thing because so much goes on. We had a pretty good week. We are just trying to stay busy. We don't get very many new investigators which is hard at some points. But the investigators we have are really progressing and I hope they get baptized pretty soon.

Yesterday we were able to have a good surprise. We went to Regina's. She is an investigator and she has been a long term investigator. They taught her the first lesson in may and finally yesterday we taught her the second lesson. She is very slowly progressing. She lives on a farm and so she is always super busy. Well, her daughter is named Lisa mae and she wanted to go to church so bad and so we inviter her and she said yes and we had a member pick lisa mae up. Lisa Mae loved church. She is a very special girl. We were thinking that we could get Lisa mae to church and that would propel her mother to come to church. Well, it worked. We went over last night and taught lesson two, the plan of salvation. We read the scripture about not procratinating the day of your repentance. The spirit rebuked regina. She said that she felt horrible that she was a very big procrastinator. She asked what she needed to do to get baptized. Good question! We told her. We then had her select a date that she would want to be baptized on. She picked one and I thought she would pick a date in november but no. She picked her date to be Oct. 15th. That is sooooo cool. She knows that the church is true. She is going to be coming to church and laying aside some of the things that she normally does so she can get baptized. :) Lisa Mae will most likely be baptized on that day too.

Maryah. She is really progressing. She is making time for us now and it is wonderful. We went on a piknik with her yesterday. We had fun. We got to really know her really well. She so wants to be loved. She is praying about baptism still and I think she will get her answer pretty soon. She may also get baptized Oct. 15th. That would really really neat. :)

Anyway, time is getting really short. I am glad to be on a mission. I am learning alot while being here. I am learning more and more about how much God loves each and every one of us. It is amazing to know that he has sent us Jesus Christ to atone for our sins. And for Jesus Christ to take upon himself every pain and affliction that we have so that we know at least one person will know how we feel. It is wonderful to know that God sent us a prophet to help us in these times. I am very excited for conference in a couple weeks. I hope you are.

I love you all, Amanda

September 5, 2011

We have been trying so hard to get people to come to church whether they be less actives or investigators. Yesterday we had two investigators and one less active come to church. It was really great to see them there. But it is not enough. I got a little dissapointed that many others did not show because they told us they would come. We have been reading with many of the people we teach the conference talk from April about the Sabbath Day given by Elder L. Tom Perry. It is one of my favorites. There is a part that I learned from it. It says, "And it shall be a testimony unto the Father..." It is a scripture but I can't remember the scripture quite at this time. But that phrase stuck out to me. The word 'it' is referring to partaking of the sacrament i believe. I learned from it as I was teaching it. A testimony unto the Father. Well a testimony is something we believe or know to be true. So WE shall be a testimony unto the father because we are doing what we have promised we will do. It is almost like he can trust us more because we have taken the sacrament. I don't know it that made sense to you, but it makes sense in my head. :) we had a really good training for district meeting. We had the president come to give us interviews and then the assistants gave us the training. Basically we are going to be really busy with FHE. WE are instituting Family Home Evening again and we are going to have a lot of fun with it. Members are going to ask their friends over in a non threatening way and say they are going to have a FHE. Then tell them the topic of the FHE and then say that the missionaries are going to come over. So basically the members will say, "George, I want to invite you to come over to my home on Thursday night at 7pm. My family usually does something called Family Home Evening and it is very special to us because it helps bring us together. It is what our church has suggested to us to do so our families can come closer together. We want to share that time with you because you are so special to our family. We are going to have a gospel convesation on faith in Jesus Christ. It will only take about half an hour and you can enjoy some refreshments afterwards with us. I want you to know that the missionaries from our church are going to come over with us and teach the principle on faith. The spirit will be a good influence for all. Will you have time to do that?" Very non threatening. We have a lot of members who are excited to do this and I am excited to meet their friends. Really the whold point is for us as missionaries to NOT bombard them with question as, "Do you want to learn more." The purpose is to bring them into members homes and help them to feel the difference in a home with the priesthood and a home with out the priesthood. We are hoping that this difference will inspire them to learn more about the church. I am very excited for this approach. Saturday the blessing poured out. We started our fast Saturday during lunch time and the blessings came. We tried to contact Brenda again but she was not home...again. She has been missing for about two weeks. Then we went to a less active named Jane. We learned alot more about her than we wanted. Sometime I feel like we are almost like bishops because people 'confess' to us. WELL, Jane confessed to us and told us she was made about getting baptized because she was not ready to. I agree. We are helping her and teaching her different doctrines that will help her repent. We encouraged her to talk to the bishop. Yesterday she did so and guess what? We were in the bishops office with her and it was awkward. I have a stronger desire not to do anything that would cause me to be in the bishops office. Then we went to a former investigators and she is very elect we think. We knocked on the door and she come out and we hardly said anything. We just said, we are from the church of jesus christ. She sat down and started to talk about what she knows and how she is still trying to stop smoking and how she wants to go to church tomorrow and this and that. She basically just latched right on to us. haha. Her name is Terri Edwards. I want her to be baptized so bad. She is so sweet. We went back over to Brenda's after Terri and SHE WAS HOME!!!! what a blessing. She said she still wants to be baptized and wants to come to church and is still reading the book of mormon. We had an appointment with her yesterday but...she was gone. So, I don't know if she is not telling us the truth and just trying to avoid us and just does not want to tell us to go away. I don't know. Then Maryah. She is 13 and the sweetest girl ever. She is really hyper most time but saturday she was very calm and mellow. It was strange. That allowed the spirit to be there ten fold. We found out that she is really confused on what church to go to. She is deciding between the baptist church across the street and the LDS church. There was one point in the lesson that we asked her to pray to know what church is true. When she got done praying we asked how she felt and she said she did not know. Then the strangest thing. She started crying. I think she was having a hard day anyway. Crazy emotional teenage girls. haha. But really there were probably two reasons why she was crying. 1) she didn't get an answer right away as she was expecting or 2) she felt the holy ghost and did not know what it was so she got scared because she had not had that feeling before. I really wanted Maryah to be baptized this transfer but we are going to work with her even more. So that was the blessed day. Sunday was pretty cool day as well. I really like church. It is very amusing sometimes. There were so many distractions. haha. Someone burped out loud, a cell phone went off, a car alarm went off, a chair fell over, Jane looked super mad because she had not smoked for a full 24 hours. haha. Anyway. In R.S. there is a new book that was given called Daughter in My Kingdom. I absolutely love this book. I have read two chapters and have learned alot. One of my favorite lines is given by Joseph Smith on page 19, "Let this society teach how to act towards husbands, to treat them with mildness and affection. When a man is borne down with trouble--when he is perplexed, if he can meet a smile, not an argument--if he can meet with mildness, it will clam down his soul and soothe his feelings. When the mid is going to despair, it needs a solace....When you go home never give a cross word, but let kindness, charity and love, crown you works." There is also a whole section called Increase Faith and Personal Righteousness and I pretty much love the whole section. A part in it said, "He (joseph Smith) encouraged them to be at peace with the Lord, with those around them, and with themselves: 'Sisters..., Shall there be strife among you? I will not have it--you must repent and get the love of God.'" I thought that was pretty rebuking and somewhat to me. I learned alot from it. Anyways, I love you all. I hope you all have a great week!
Sister Amanda Ralph.

August 29, 2011

This week has been a really good week. It all really started off with a pointless Dr. appointment we had to go to. Sister Waite had to have surgery on her gal bladder and it was time for her check up appointment. We drove one hour there and waited for an hour and went in to the room and the doctor came and asked her three questions, looked at the incisions and said she was all good. It took maybe two minutes to do that and then we headed back home. haha. It was funny and ridiculous. but Sister Waite is all good and healthy now. :)

Brenda. We went over on tuesday morning when we thought she might be home from her trip. We knocked and she answered and let us in. She told us she had just gotten back thirty min. before we knocked. What timing. :) We had a good lesson and she was all excited about being baptized next weekend. We left her and went on our way. But the rest of the week we have not been able to see her. We were trying to see her everyday to keep her strong. She has not answered the door though. One day we went over maybe 3 times. On the third time, we caught her looking out the window and when we knocked she did not answer. So something is wrong and we have no idea what. The next day that we went she put a note on the door that said she went to her daughters house for a 'few days.' She has not come back yet. She missed church this week and so she will not be able to be baptized this week. Which this may be a sign that she is not ready or commited to joining as well as we thought. I hope she answers her door soon though.

We found a good person to teach this week. Her name is Ruth. She is pretty solid I think. We found her on Thursday. We went to deliver a CD that she wanted and we thought that she was a former investigator. We finally found her trailer and I did not feel good about the trailer park at all. It was scary feeling. But we decided to knock anyway. She was the nicest lady ever. She is 45 and she started talking to us like we were her best friends. We taught about the restoration and her fiancee was there listening as well. He fiance's name is James. He is a pretty cool guy. Well versed in the scripture. He about gave up on religion because there were so many hypocrites. But the spirit was way strong as we taught. We gave her a book of mormon and a restortation pamplet and then we set up another appointment for the next day. We went back the next day and we got there and usually sister waite and I pray before we go in to the appoinment. I was praying and when I opened my eyes Ruth was walking towards us. It was awkward that she saw us praying. She told us that she had to cancel because of a surprised funeral. Good excuse I think. But we set up another appointment. Ruth told us that she has started reading the BofM and read the restoration pamphlet already! That is what makes her an elect person. She is very cool. I can't wait to see her get baptized.

This week we were able to reach alot of ice burghs. Does that seem weird? haha. Usually people do not share with us the reason they do not go to church. They give a surface level answer but really the reason they don't go to church is usually a deeper concern. We went in to see a less active and she really laid it out for us of why she does not go. She said that her kids do not go to church and why would she go to church and make it to the temple if her kids can't go with her? It is a very big concern with her. We didn't really know what to say but we said something by the spirit and I think it touched her. She was crying by the end and I kind of felt bad for that but I think it needed to be done. There is going to have to be a lot of work with her to get her to come to church because she won't do it just for her.

We have been praying specifically this week to really find out everyone's concerns and it has prooved to work. I believe that we all need to be more specific in our prayers. Instead of just saying, "help the spirit to be in this meeting," say, "please help us to all pay attention and find an aspect that we need to focus on during the talks that are given." If we pay attention the spirit will be there.

I need to get going. I love you all very much. Love Amanda

August 22, 2011

Well, life is a little different here in Salem, Kentucky. I have a little bit of resentment on being here but I know that God has a purpose for me to be here. This area feels like my first area, Tell City. It is supposed to be a ward but it functions like a branch. There were probably 70 people which is better than I have had. We are teaching a lot of less actives and it is going well so far. There are a couple who really want to change their lives around. We have been tracting a few times and no one wants to hear about the message we have to share. It is going to be slow work I believe. We have a batism in two weeks. A lady named Brenda. She is a very elect person, so I hear. I have not met her because she has been out of town. They were able to teach her in six weeks and she has no problem with anything. It will be exciting to meet her. :) This place is called Salem the skunk house. I named it :) There are a ton of skunks and everyday we get a whiff of skunks. How good is that? haha. We met a member and he is blind and he says that I sound like I am 10 years old. haha. :) If only. On wednesday we do alot of physical labor. We just do all of our service activities all in one day apparently. We go clean at the YMCA. We go to one of the big dance rooms and it has tall mirrors that we clean and sweep and mop the floor. We walk the 1 1/2 miles to the YMCA and then we walk home. Then we mow a members lawn. It is fun. I have not mowed lawns forever. I like it. I realized why I am having troubles maintaining my weight. In Corbin, we taught. In Salem, we walk. haha. There is alot of work to be done in this area. It kind of stinks to think about how long missionaries have been here and how many times a street may have been tracted. I keep praying that God will tell us where to go. A couple months ago I had a dream about tracting on Mann St. and that there was a very elect family there. I have been looking in every area I have been in and there was no mann street. So, finally this area. This area has a mann street. We have tracted a little bit of it and so far, no such luck. I am putting my trust in God though. There is someone there I believe.

One bit of exciting news. Do you want to know who is in my District???? SISTER MIKAMI!!!! I was so so so so excited to hear that she was in my district. She called me the night that I got into Salem. I missed her so much. On friday we got to see her. I am going to be able to see her alot and it is going to be great.

We had a good lesson with a girl name Maryiah.(Moriah). She is 13 years old and is a very sweet girl but she does not pay attention very well. She has had all the lessons and she wants to be baptized but we are waiting for permission first. We knock on her door and she comes out and says she was busy. Appartently she has said that alot. So, I asked why she was busy. She said she was waiting for her brother to get home so they (Grandma, her and brother) could go to New Albany. I was not going to leave without teaching her a little lesson though so I said, "Well, can we come in and wait with you?" That got her and she let us in. Shortly after that she says, "OH, I remember. We went to New Albany yesterday." haha. that is what I thought. :) So we teach her a lesson and we had cups that go along with the restoration lesson. I knew that we would have to make it really interesting for her because she does not have that long of an attention span. So I got down on the floor with her and I told her we were going to have a lot of fun. We were going to make a pyramid. She like that. The lesson went really really well. I was albe to hold her attention and she understood alot. I like her alot alot and I can't wait for her to be baptized. I also made her a reading chart so if she reads for thirty days and goes to church for 5 weeks, she will be able to get a pizza. She like that. :)

So that was pretty much the week. We visit alot of Less actives and that can be frustrating at times. :) It will be good. I love you all. Love Sister Amanda Ralph.

August 15, 2011

My brain is already coming up blank on what we did this week. It was not near as eventful as last week but it was still good. Guess what? we got transfer calls on saturday and....I am leaving the promised land. :( Surprise surprise. I will tell you all about saturday. Saturday we had the chance to go to the temple. Willard was going to go and do baptisms and he wanted us to go with him. We were able to go to an earlier session to go do endowments. We got there and it was very exciting. I was a little nervous because I had not been for a while but it was one of the best experiences. Once again I felt a lot of peace and comfort especially in knowing that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. We then went into the baptismal section of the temple and we were able to sit with willard and talk a little bit about how he felt. He said that he wished he could have brought some of his family names so that they could get baptized. :) That is pretty special that he wanted to do that. He absolutly loved the temple and I can't wait til july to see him go through it all. It will be a wonderful thing. When we got out of the temple, we had a few voicemails. We figured it was the district leader telling us if we were staying or going. We started to listen and it was not the district leader. It was president woodbury. If President Woodbury calls, then you or your companion are training. YIKES! I was not all that nervous because President asked for Sister Nelson to call him, not me. Phew I got out of that one but man, I am leaving the promised land. Sure enough Sister nelson is training and I get to try to fit all my stuff in my bags. That is not going to be so fun. I have started to pack and I am going to cross my fingers and I hope yuns do too. :)

Sunday was a good day but not as well. We are teaching this lady named Sherry Taylor. I have gotten so close to her and she has gotten so close to me as well. It is almost like being with Irene. We went over and spent sunday night with Sherry. She was on and off crying. She taught us how to cook some really good corn and a really good peach cobler and she had ribs for us to eat. The ribs were not all that good. They were very tender and falling off the bone but it was all fatty. It was not very good and it was cold. People here like to serve cold/warm food. It is pretty gross. I am used to hot out of the oven food. I am going to be making the corn that I ate because it is the best corn I have ever eaten. I guess it is because it is full of butter and oil. :) Just like kentuckians like it. Oh! the word on the subject line is a weird word. We heard it from Sherry and it is supposed to mean corn on the cob. I will have to tell you what it is when i get home because I don't really know how to spell it.

Sister nelson and i did a musical number on sunday. It was really good. The spirit was very very strong and sister nelson said that a ton of people were crying and someone was just sobbing. :)

Bishop Barton is not very happy that I am leaving. He wanted me to stay forever in that ward. He jokes that all he wants me here for is to play the organ. haha. but really, he wants me here more than that. I was really expecting to stay here the rest of my mission and was excited to do so. I have gained so my close relationships with people and it is going to be sad to leave. This will probably be the hardest area to leave I believe. It kind of feesl that I am supposed to be going home now because I have set it in my mind that I would be spending the rest of my mission in corbin but Heavenly Father pulled a fast one on me. :) haha. I hope my next area is just as good as this one. I think I may be going to Salem, Illinois. Let's see if I guess right.

That was pretty much it. We have a busy schedule ahead of us. We want to make a tape for Willard and sherry and Judy so we are going to go to the church and record the song we sang yesterday for them. It will be fun to do that. One day, a couple weeks ago, I was able to sit at the piano and just play and it was so fun. I miss being able to do that. As time keeps going that I am not able to do that, I get sad. But time keeps coming to when I will be able to do that and i get excited for that. I was able to sit down, a couple weeks ago, and I made up a new song. i really like it and I can't wait for you all to hear it. : )
I love you all. Love amanda.

August 8, 2011

what a whirlwind of a week. There was so much that happened that I will not be able to tel you all about it. I will tell you the cool news though. We set a baptism date with someone and we were able to get 9 new investigators. We have been testing something out. Talk to everyone. Everytime that we see someone, we stop and talk to them. We give them a pass a long card or talk about the book of mormon or jesus christ. It was such a good week because we were doing that. The more you talk to people, the greater your chances to get an investigator. Who would have thought? haha.

The Lexington Zone is doing a challenge. We have a list of things that we are supposed to try to accomplish each day. The more we do the items, the more points we get and sometimes there are bonus points. It is really fun. Two weeks ago, we were not doing well and one of the zone leaders called us and told us that he wanted us to 'get back into the game.' He actually said that he wanted us to come back. That really hit my heart and it felt like I was being rebuked so I was determined to have a great week and to 'come back.'

We were able to get 9 new investigators. The first one is Nick Egner. He is a friend of Logan Wyatt (investigator) and we were able to teach both of them one day. We met with them a couple days ago but didn't teach anything. We ended up helping them out with a grave yard. They were in charge of mowing the lawn and the grass was up to my hip in some parts. We helped out by putting the flowers onto the head stone so that they didn't mow over it. It was crazy and i am glad that we did not get tic bites. That would not have been fun. We were also doing it in skirts and I wish i was wearing pants. It would have been alot better. One day we were at logan's and he was late again as usual. This time logans dad did not preach to us. It was his uncle that preached to us. I was getting a headache as he was talking. I didn't believe hardly any of it. One time we actually caught him and when we caught him in telling him he was not all the way right, he just told us goodbye because he didn't want to believe anything else. it was pretty funny.

The next gator is the brother to Sherry Taylor ('gator). He is not too promising but we shall see. He is a really funny guy. He pretends that he does not like us but he actually does. He just likes to pretend that he is mean.

The next one is Lindy. We were going to some of our potentials that we have and they were not there but Lindy was out. She was such the sweetest lady ever. I like her alot. She has been having some troubles believing and she was to come back to christ. So we are going to help her in gaining alot more faith.

Then next is Charles Feltner. He was found as we were going to check up on another investigator. He was outside on his deck and we went to talk to him. He was a very nice, talkative fellow. We ended up giving him a book of mormon and he said he would read it. We tried to visit him again but he was not home. I don't know how elect he is but we shall see.

The next is Billy (it is a girl billy) and Lilly. Billy is the Aunt to Lilly and Billy is about 40 and Lilly is 9. We tracting into them when one of our appointments fell through. Billy let us in and we told her the message we have to share about families. She said that she has had about 4 miscarriages. We told her that she will be able to have her children back. What got her most interested was Joseph Smith. She really liked that. We gave her a book of mormon and she took it and started asking all of these questions. Lilly asked Billy if she could have it but Billy said, "no, i am going to read it." haha. We gave Lilly her own book of mormon. It was a funny experience.

The next is Tracey Johnson. Her husband is a member but she is not. Her husband is not active but truely does believe. Yesterday we went over and I was very bold with him. I just simply asked why he was not coming to church. I wanted to know so why not ask such a bold statement? We ended up finding out the reason. He doesn't want to come to church because his wife will only come because she feels obligated to do so. We are going to teach his wife with more understanding towards her church she already believes in. In the past she has been singled out alot and we are going to teach her with love in our hearts.

The next one is Michael Roader. We were on our way to tract a neighborhood and he was on his porch playing his guitar. There was a puppy in his yard and so we started the conversation concerning the puppy. Girls like puppies so we were really interested in the puppy. Haha. we talked about the church for an hour. He felt the spirit so much. I really like this kid. He is 19 years old and he seemed genuinely interested. I am excited to teach him more.

We also have Jerry. He is a blind man. We were able to talk to him for a long while and he said that he would like to hear the book of mormon. So we are going to work on getting him the Book of Mormon on audio.

okay. that is all the new gators. We had a scare with Willard. We were really worried about this week becuase willard got his check and that meant the people he used to live with would be fighting harder to get his money. We were nervous. One day, he was supposed to go with a member to get his check. He was not there in the morning so we thought that maybe he was already gone with the member. But when were went to his house later, the member that was taking him was sitting on his porch. that was weird. It turned out that willard did not go this morning. He was missing...again. He has already done this before. The member left after a while and then we went to an appointment with Mary Smith. She is Judy Jones' mother. During the lesson we got a call and it was from willard and we actually took it. It was willard! it turned out that he was hiding. He saw his ex-roommates on his porch as he was at a friends house and so he ran because he didn't want to deal with them. He went to another friends house and he was safe. He was safe. it was a huge relief of our minds.

We had a really good lesson with Willard this week. It was so spiritually edifying. We went over the Restoration and as we were doing so, he was just crying. He was trying not to cry but he was. The spirit was so strong. Later on, willard was relating what he read in the book of mormon and he just started to cry as he was telling the story of Alma the younger. Willard is perhaps the most spiritual person ever. He is much like alma the younger. He started off with bad beginnings but what he is becoming to be is amazing. Willard is almost done with Third Nephi and when he is done with the book of mormon it will have been his second time all the way through it in 3 months. He is just flying through it and is learning so much from the book. It truely will change your life if you allow it to. :)

We had a lesson with a new gator we got last week and his name is Chuck. He is such a cool guy. He has had the book of mormon for a while now. One of his friends gave it to him. He is quite the inspirational guy. He is about 24 and he gratuated and is now teaching social studies and some other class. He was very interesting views on his job. He is perhaps one of the best teachers I have heard of and I have not even seen him teach. He believes in equality and he wants everyone to do their best. He grades by effort. He says that if he sees that a student is putting forth effort in the class, the student will get a good grade. I like that. Anyway, the lesson with him went well. we opened up the book of mormon to a scripture and he was simply thumbing through it and all of a sudden, a 100 dollar bill popped out onto his lap! We all did not know what to think. We were laughing for a hard time after that. how does that happen? It is a miracle. We are really hoping that he will be able to recognize the truth of the church and that is not just any church.

SO how was that? That was alot that happened but there was alot more that happened. No time to write it. : ) I love you all very much. Love Amanda Ralph

August 1, 2011

this week has not been all that eventful. We had zone conference this week and that was fun. We went on wednesday and we learned alot of stuff about how the ward members can help us out with our missionary business. We also learned alot about how the Book of Mormon can really help us out while teaching lessons. Something funny happened while we were there. Usually there are people from the stake that feed us that day for lunch. Come to find out, no one made the lunch so we all had to go out and get something to eat. Either someone forgot, or it was never planned. I didn't mind, I just thought it was funny. At the end of Zone Conference, the missionaries who are going home shortly, get up and bare their testimony of how the mission has blessed them. There were some of the best testimonies ever. There is an elder named Elder Norton that is leaving and he gave a pure testimony and it made me actually cry. He went to Eastern Arizona College and I actually knew of him so that was cool. He is a good missionary. The next and last elder who bore testimony was Elder Fielding. He made me tear up as well. He said, as I totally agree with it, "Missions fix family and blesses families." He then said that when he goes home he will not stop being a missionary and even though the tag is going to come off, he is simply going undercover as a missionary. I thought that was a cool way to put it. :) During the testimonies, I was thinking about the next time zone conference come around. When that time comes I will bare my testimony. Time is coming to a close and I am not ready for it to happen. Four more months of learning here I come! President Woodbury told us that he was sent out with a mission to double the baptisms. We are really striving to double the baptisms. I know that people are prepared...somwhere. We did get a referal this morning and it seems pretty elect. He has already been taught 2 lessons and he simply was moving so now we get to finish up teaching this guy.

one fun thing that I got to do, which was kind of gross but it suited my personality, was to pluck out ear hairs from Willard's ear. He was getting really bushy in there and he saw that sister nelson had tweezers and asked if one of us would pluck his ear hairs out. Sister Nelson immediatly pointed to me and I, at first, was rejecting on doing that because it is gross but that I contented on doing it. We had the lesson and then I started doing it and it was really fun. He had fun as well. It was not hurting him as bad as I thought it would. He was practically falling asleep. His voice was in such a lull. It was very funny.

Yesterday we got to spend the day in the ER with one of our investigators. It was with Sherry Taylor. She had run out of some of her medication when she came down to corbin to watch her sons dogs and it was not good medicine to run out of. It was medicine to stop her from seizing and her depression medicine. She was not doing well. She called us and wanted us to go to ER with her. We could not drive over to the hospital because we had no more miles to do so, so we got in her car and she drove there which was pretty scary because she was not feeling well. But we got there safe. We were there for about 2 and a half hours. Not too bad i think. But it was driving me crazy the way it all turned out. It seemed to be like an Urgent Care. They got sherry in the room and the doctors came in and asked her about her medication. She takes about 15 different kinds of medicine which is ALOT. Well, they come back in and say they can give her a weeks worth of the medication that she forgot and send her on her way after they give her some medication. It seemed to be all too easy to get drugs that way. Sherry ended up having some chest pains as well from the stress and they came in and said, we will end up ginving you a shot to calm you down but you are not able to drive after that. So they gave her a shot after we got permission to drive her car home. It was all a strange experience. It seemed to not be the way it should have been. oh well though.

That was pretty much it. This week will be a good week i believe and I hope it is for you as well.

Love, Sister Amanda Ralph

July 25, 2011

well, let me tell you just how this week started off shall I? It was really funny. On Tuesday, we went over to Willard's to teach him new member lessons. so we were talking with him on his porch and then he asked that we go inside his house to get him a drink of water. So we do so. We come back out and sister nelson shuts the door all the way and that is not good. Willard did not have his key and the door was locked! We locked willard out of his house. haha. oops. We start brainstorming up ideas. We tried to open up his front window but people here paint the wood around the window and that in return paints them shut. Whoever thought of that idea failed. haha. Then we went to a persons house that was just around the corner and this person is a lock smith so we thought maybe he could figure out how to get us in. But that person was not home. bummer. We called some other locksmiths to figure out what the price would be if we were to get them to come over and let us in and it was 30 dollars. Not bad i guess. We get back to willards house and then we walk around the house seeing if there were any windows that we could open. There were not many choices. Willard settled on getting one of the windows open and he said he wanted a brick to throw through the window but we insisted that we come up with another idea first. I tried to do something with his cane and I ended up putting a crack in the window. that was not good. So, we brainstorm some more and then we remember that we had some people working on our house and we were thinking that maybe they would have a crowbar. So, we walk home and go up to a worker and we said, "do you happen to have a crowbar?" The worker looks over to find two sister missionaries and says, "You are the last two people that I would ever expect to ask for a crowbar." hahahaha. then he found one and he says it is a little rusty but then we said, "we are not scared to get dirty." :) We go back over to willards and his friend showed up and helped us. We got the window open with a crow bar, a couple sticks for leverage, and finally a jack. We got the window open so that I would be able to get through it. I was the smallest one so i had to do it. I did it really gracefully for being in a skirt. :) We did not break any more glass but when we tried to close it, then the glass got broken. Willard told us not to worry about it though so I guess we won't. Yes, that was an interesting morning.

We met this lady on tuesday and her name is Kathy Gross. She is so cool. The first time we tried to meet her, her husband answered the door and he was not very nice to us. We were praying that she would answer the door. She did and she is this west indies lady and she is about 4 foot 11. Very short and she is about in her 60s. she is fun. We got her as a referal. Her friend lives in Hawaii and we got a phone call from her and said that she gave kathy a book of mormon a long while ago and wanted kathy to be taught. SO COOL. We were talking to kathy and she eventually said something about the book of mormon. She said that she believes in it to be a word of god and thinks that everyone should read it. She believes it. I hope she will want to be baptized soon. :)

Wednesday night we were planning on tracting and I felt as if we should go see another referral that we got. We have been trying to contact this referal for a long while. We go over to the house and we are always running into the father of the house. We were looking for a meagan wyatt. The fathers name is randall. he is a preacher, or used to be. His doctrines that he teaches DO NOT go along with our doctrines or alot of peoples doctrines. I get a headache every time that we have to talk to him. We have talked to him three times and it is just not cool. So this was going to be the last time that we would probably to go over there. We get there and randall is outside as usual. He says, "Meagan is here today" YEAHHHHHHH. We walk up and then this boy comes up to us and says, "I think you are looking for me." We were confused. Then he explained that he had talked with some elders in a different area and had a word of wisdom pamphlet. His name is logan So the referal was wrong and I guess meagan sounds like logan? anyways, logan said we could go out and sit on a swing area and so we do. Just us three. Then here comes randall. I roll my eyes to myself. Randall is getting really contentious with his son and i finally spoke out loud and said, "You know, we are not here to be contentious and figure out all the problems so we are going to move onto a question that logan has. (turning to logan) you had a question about..." I was getting really frustrated with randall. Throughout our visit logan got up and left and came back 3 times. He was getting mad at his father. The last time that he left, i felt prompted to do something. He started coming back and i just got up in the middle of randall's sentence and said that I would be right back and then I started to walk towards logan. Logan had a big smile on his face. I asked him if we would be able to come back and preferably somewhere else or without his father. He laughs and then we go sit on the back of a pickup truck. Then we talk for thirty min and it was a good talk. I felt the spirit so much. Logan is searching for truth and he can not find it. He has so so so so many questions and his dad makes those questions confusing and does not really answer them. So I was able to answer all of his questions simply. There was a big storm coming so we left and had another appointment with him the next day. On the way home, it was stressful. It down poured and it was dark and I could hardly see and I had to slow way down. The streets were flooding pretty bad but we were able to get home. Then next day, we had a three hour conversation with him! three hours went by so fast. He was just popping out question after question. I like logan alot. :)

I need to end this letter. We don't have much time today but know that I love you all.

Love, Sister Amanda Ralph

July 18, 2011

hello! This week was a pretty good week. It was really strange to not have a baptism this weekend. Maybe in a couple weeks we will have a couple more baptisms. That challenge of 5 baptism dates, mom, is going to be a real challenge but it can happen. Just have to have lots of faith and prayers. Not much has really happened this week. We got our car back on tuesday. The alternator was broke and the battery was dead. On tuesday we could not find anyone to give us a ride to the car shop so we decided to walk it. It ended up being a 2 mile walk and it was not as hot as it was on monday and it only took 45 to walk it. We were walking with purpose. :) I am very very glad to have the car back.

We met with Judy Jones' mom this week. She is becoming more and more interested. She will be baptized as soon as she stops her coffee drinking and gain a testimony about that. We want to teach her more than we are able to. She lives too far away.

We were finally able to meet with Kendra this week. We have been trying to discern her needs and how dedicated she really is. She is not really all that dedicated though. We asked her how her reading is going in the book of mormon and she says it is going good and then she attempts to tell us what is going on. She says, "I think it is about a guy named Aprhomani and he is trying to tell us how bad being wicked is." We just smiled and said, "um, not quite." It reality she was totally wrong. Haha. She can't fool us. :) when we were talking, she was smoking and the smoke was going right into my face so I felt like a smoker. It was so hard to breathe. She got up and left for a couple seconds and I turned over to sister nelson and I said, "How is that smoking going for you?"

We had a scare of LICE. we were visiting this part member family and they do not live in the cleanest inviroment. they have dogs that get let out and then brought back into the house and I am sure that there are a million of fleas everywhere. I have been bitten by fleas before so I was not too concerned for that. We left and the next night we get a phone call from Bishop telling us that they have lice! The little girl has lice and i touched her hair to feel it because I wanted to. It was just a couple seconds though. The mom has lice too and I gave her a hug. And I guess the dog has lice and we played with the dog. Sister nelson more than me. We were sooo concerned about this. We really didn't want to have lice. But it has been a couple days and we do not have lice thankgoodness. We will not be visiting them for a while. :)

We went tracting and had a good experience...or not. This lady come out of her house and shut the door and then she looked at our tags. We had not said anything just How are you? She looked at our tags and then looked a bit scared and said, "the church of jesus christ of latterday saints? no thankyou. I am not interested." then she went back inside quickly. I wanted to say why not but she shut the door too quickly.

The last thing that happened that I think is worth mentioning is that we got hit on by a person that was very much high on pills. We were talking to a guy outside of these apartments and this drunk guy is in his car with the door opened and he starts to say, "do you want to know what I think?" We stated what he thought and pointed to a plan of salvation tattoo on his arm. That was pretty unusual to hear someone say the plan of salvation that is not of our faith. Sister nelson goes to talk to him for a little bit and he asked her to date him. She politely says no. He leaves for a while and comes back and says, "Do you want to know what song I really like? Itzy Bitzy Spider." he then proceeds to sing us the song. hahaha. it was so funny. He then leaves but keeps yelling to us trying to get us to go out with him. crazy drug people.

anyway. That is pretty much it. :)
have a great fantastic week. :) Sister Amanda Ralph

July 11, 2011

This week was a really good week. We are struggling to get more people to teach. That limits the baptisms we are able to have but this week we have a ton more time to go tract and find people. We are going to try to look for Mr Moseley and hopefully we will be able to find him. We as a zone for missionaries, are doing a fast. One missionary gets a day to fast and that has helped out a whole bunch in finding people to teach. One companionship has gotten 5 baptism dates within the last couple days. It is crazy. Pray that we will find elect people to teach this week. :)
We met our new Mission President. His name is President Woodbury. He is a great guy. He has the voice of President Greer and it is kind of strange. He is a great guy and he will be able to do marvelous things. I love his wife. She is so...spunky? so excited I guess to be there. She is very musical and has sang in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for 9 years. That is pretty cool. :)
Thursday night we were able to do something that was quite awkward. There is a member who lives at an apartment complex and on thursday nights there is a church devotional thing. This member is Brother Mink. He really wanted us to go tract by his apartments and we were able to meet sherri so it was a good thing. well brother mink also wanted us to come to this devotional thing and we were kind of dragging our feet because we did not want to step on anyones toes. Well, we ended up going this thursday making it completely clear that we would not be teaching anything and that we would just listen. So we went and it was pretty fun but really different then The church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints. We first went in and it was a little awekward at first but people were very nice to us. I want to teach some people that were there but I don't know if they would be open to that. Well, we ate dinner first and that was good. Then they started to sing songs and brother mink was playing the electric guitar and he soooooo good. He is one of the better guitarists I have ever heard. It was amazing because if you look at him he does not look like he would be that good but he certainly was. Then there was a guest speaker and he spoke about why we worship. It was good. I felt the spirit sometimes. He said some things that were not correct doctrine but over all it was good. I found out a couple interesting things that don't seem to invite the spirit all that well. They were always saying Amen in the middle of the speech and some hallelujahs. it was certainly strange. I think that the strangest thing ever was when all of a sudden the preacher would break out into prayer. Then i would kind of bow my head and think it was strange and then the preacher would go on with his speech. I do not think that we will go back as missionaries. :)
We left after that and there was a sign that had Sister Nelson's nick name on it and so we pulled over into the gas station and took a picture of it really quick. We were out of the car for only 30 secs. I should not have taken the keys out of the ignition. When I went back into the car, the car would not start at all. When I put in the key, it would do some strange clicking sounds and the car would not start at all. I was very confused. I was thinking that the car was thinking we were trying to steal it. But we were not trying to I promise. Haha. We ended up having to call a member to come and jump us. We figured out that it might have been the battery. The car did start after 3 min of charging. I now know how to jump a car. not all that difficult really. :) We got home safely and on time. The next day, in the morning, we tried the car again. It would not start. Then later that day, a tow truck came to take our car to a dealership to figure out what exactly was wrong with it. We have been without a car for a couple days now and it is not all that fun. It has been the longest I have been without a car ever. I don't much like it. We have been relying on the ward which is a good thing but it is more burdensome. We have good members though. We found out that the alternator is bad and the battery is dead. They had to order a part and it will be fixed by tomorrow morning. I am going to be happy to have a car back especially because it is soooo hot outside. It was feeling really good for a long time. Today is the hotest it has been all year.
Okay. The Baptism. It was oh so funny. the interview was on friday and Elder Tuescher came all the way from Mckee to interview him but he forgot one essential thing...the interview paper. We didn't have any with us at that time and had no car to get home to get one. It was pretty funny. Elder Tuescher talks ALOT and the interview went longer than we thought. We ended up having to go but we knew that willard would pass. The elders came by the house to get the interview paper and Elder Tuescher signed what he needed to sign. Then they left. We were able to talk to the member who was going to baptize Willard. His name is Brother Williams. He is a great guy. Brother williams and willard have a lot it common. They are best friends now. Brother williams has not done a baptism before. This would be his first time. He was a little nervous buy confident that he would be able to do it. Willard had a stroke and so immersing him would be a little different. I was praying that Bro. williams would be able to do it. I knew it was going to be a weird one. so we got willard all prepped for his batism. We got him in his jumpsuit and then the talk on baptism was said and done and then it was time to get him baptized. We were waiting at the baptismal font. The doors were closed to the font so we could not see anything for a while. They got willard into the water and bishop came around and was opening the doors. (oh a side note. We had another member, steven rodriguez at the edge of the steps just in case bor williams needed help in getting willard back up). As bishop was opening the doors, bro. williams hand was already up and he was saying the ordinance and I thought that he was just practicing but all of a sudden there goes willard. He he in the water and then bro williams is struggling to get willard back up. Steven is in the back ground and he is starting to get into the water and he slips into the water. Not fully thankgoodness. He just got his shorts wet. it was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo funny. I was laughing so hard. It was a struggle to get composer again. There were no witnesses for the baptism so they had to do it again. This time it was a little bit better. I was laughing still and willards face was so funny. We found out later that he got water in his eyes and in his nose because he had a hard time getting back up. But it was done. It was a close one but it got done. :) I was pretty much laughing the whole entire time and instead of going back to the piano to play some interlude music while willard got changed, I had to go to the bathroom to gain composer. I was crying. Literally tears were falling down my face as I was laughing about what happened. I couldn't help it. It will be by far the best most memorable baptisms in my life. :) The next day, willard almost did not get confirmed. The person he gets a ride with was there and willard was not there. There was ten min til the start of the meeting and willard had to be there. The person said that the door was open to the house but willard was not there. We pretty much told him that he needed to go back and get willard. It took a long time. There was supposed to be ward business and there was none because willard was not there. I got done playing the sacrament hymn and walks in willard. Phew. he made it. I was so so so so so happy that we was there. Then there was ward business and he got confirmed and it was amazing. Before willard sat down he was welcomed into the ward and then bishop got up and said that willard had been interviewed and found worthy to hold the priesthood. Willard is now a priest and that is pretty much amazing. He loves being baptized. :) He has a new light in his eyes and it is great.

Okay. I love you all. I hope this week is a great week for yuns. I love you very very much.
Amanda