Being a Missionary is so Great!

We had a centipede in our apartment. then another, and then another. Then I found a dead one in the bathroom of the Buena Vista Chapel where the YSA meets. Gross. I am the catcher and the killer of them. Being the tallest companion, you get the hard jobs. It is so gross. I have never seen one before, but the first one we wanted to keep and show to other missionaries, it was an ordeal! We almost lost it in the carpet. So scary. It's body was 2 inches long, but it had 4 antennas and 30 legs. Don't worry, I have a picture!

We just had two baptisms, Kayana Kane and Wyatt Weese. Fun fact, Wyatt's birthday is the 28th of December, my nephew Wyatt's birthday is the 28th of December! Cool! It was so amazing to have been part of someone learning in person, not just teaching the Restoration and watch them walk away wondering what will become of them. My companions had started teaching them before I came, but just barely. Kayana is so good, the YSA elders have already asked her to be a member present in a lesson this week! Wyatt can't wait to get married in the temple, literally, ever since he had the Law of Chastity lesson and temples, he talks about it every time. They are so great! It will be fun to follow them on social media and keep in touch with them. Their testimonies are so strong!

We are busy everyday.

Sundays we go to the Tongan ward at 8:30 am. They sing in Tongan, which so amazing. The older generations speak in Tongan, the youth speak in English. We leave after sacrament meeting and go to the YSA ward, which starts at 10:30. We stay all three hours. Actually, this past Sunday, my companions and I spoke. Since Kayana and Wyatt got confirmed a member and received the Holy Ghost, that only left a short time for us to speak. I was the last speaker and as the time came down, I spoke for like four minutes, which is A-okay with me! Speaking in church is not my favorite. But we all did great.

We do about five hours of planned service each week.

Eating in Tongan homes is odd. Usually we eat and they watch us or are off in the other room, or the head of the house will eat with us, but even then not that much. That is the culture or they just hand us some money. Kind of sad. But for the YSA Chili Cook Off we are dressing in some Tongan attire and being Tongans for Halloween. My companions last transfer got these beautiful matching Tongan dresses a member made for them. There is this skirt chilling in the closet that fits me, so I get to wear that. My hair is just a blond Tongan version, so I am covered there.

There are quite a few less actives that we work with that are making so much progress. There is one that falls asleep a lot during meetings, so the sisters would give him mints. Well, for the baptism he was so persistent of a mint to keep him awake, I gave him like half of my mints. Then we had a "Why Believe Fireside" (devotional) Sunday night, He asked for some more, I just gave him the rest of the container. He was very loud about getting them out of the thing. So funny. The fireside happens at the end of each transfer, each zone puts on their own, and members are invited to come, and a few are asked to share their conversation stories. Kayana shared hers, a less active we work with shared his, and some other member did as well.

Also, this is huge, I guess. So the Bishop of the YSA ward has been a bit standoffish to the missionaries, both us and the elders, because some missionaries awhile back were a little too close with the members. So he hasn't done much with us. But this past transfer, he has texted us a complement and then this last Sunday he wanted to have a meeting with us, the elders, and our ward mission leader. This is HUGE! Really HUGE! He doesn't want any of us to get transferred out next week, which neither he nor us can control, but he appreciates the efforts that we have been putting in. I wasn't as excited as Sisters Lovestedt and Christensen and Elders Harmon and Wegelin, but they were super, super stoked, which made this very note worthy by their reactions.

Man, being a missionary is so great!
Sister Glanzer

Also we ate dinner with this family up in Cold Springs, which is super far away in our area, and their less active friend gave us nicknames. Sister Circumference, Sister Lock n' Load, and Sister Glycerin. Best nicknames ever.

We ate octopus ;)

The Zone

:)

Just Been Busy as Bees

We've just been busy as bees! We actually had two people have their baptism interviews these past few days! So we have Wyatt. He really, really, really likes dirt bikes and motorcycles, who has had a number of concussions in his day. Sister Christensen is super good at connecting motorcycles to the gospel. The Zone leaders were going to interview him on Friday, and they had to drive 30 minutes to get the chapel at 6:30. We are running a little late ourselves, getting done with dinner at 6:30, and we look at a text we got from Wyatt that he was in Carson with his sister.................................AHHHHHHH! But he is pretty funny. He had his interview on Saturday and he took an hour and 20 minutes... because he talks a lot... about motorcycles.

Sunday was Kayana's interview, and she took like 30 minutes and our district leader did her's. He said it was his very first he has done. She is super! She is in Jacob 4 in the Book of Mormon, and she is solid in the gospel! She is a freshmen at UNR, her friend Brendan is a recent covert that we are also working with to be more solid in the gospel. We teach both of them together.

Okay quick side note about Kayana's interview, we had eight people in the building, two elders, three sisters, one ward mission leader, and Kayana, and Brendan... I was taller than all of them! WOOT!

Their baptisms are next Saturday! I am excited for them!

There is a Tongan family that we teach Family Home Evening (FHE) to on Mondays, and I am always really excited for that! In the past they haven't been too involved in the FHE, like pulling teeth to get them to respond, but last Monday we taught the Word of Wisdom lesson and I got them more open! Today we are talking about temples, my element! We teach FHE to them because they live with the grandparents, and there is a bit of a language barrier between them.

We had exchanges with the Peavine sisters, aka Sister Smith A. and Sister Roush! Sister Smith joined Sister Christensen and I! That was so much fun to have her around for the day! We had just exchanged and our appointments fell through, so we were driving down Rock (a main street) and we see this kid just walking down the middle of the road not caring if he got hit by cars, so we flip around and go talk to him. Walked all the way to his home with him, He had a rough football game. Turns out he lives right next to the assistants to the President! We saw them later that night and told them to follow up in a few days. He also reads the book of Mormon every couple of months just to read it. This kid is prepared, if not now, but definitely in the future!

Hmm. It is getting colder and colder here...

Well have a great week everyone!

Sister Glanzer

This is our desk arrangement

A typical P-day we spend at the King's Row Chapel, running around the gym! Pretty fun!

My stellar companions putting the finishing touches on their case study!

The Sienna Elders saw our car parked and gave us some sardines... we passed them on to the YSA Elders

Taking a brain break

I was brushing my teeth and as I spit out the toothpaste foam my hair does a suicide jump and collides with the stream of spit

The end of the exchange!

Jacki Fisher was a super awesome member that moved to Logan. We were so crushed, she always came out with us to lessons

Baptisms in Reno

Brother Ron Turner from the Reno  NV who has the opportunity to work with the full time missionaries from the Reno North Stake, sent these photos on Saturday. 

Early morning photo of the first snowfall in the Sierra Nevada Mountains outside of Reno

I am glad to give my time to Him

This week is Tongan week, meaning the big-hearted people feed us this week. They feed us tons of food. Maybe next meal I'll see if I can take a picture, but last night a brother had cooked a HUGE foil pan of Lasagna. I was so worried they would have made us take it all with us.

But of the food that has been Tongan, is Lou, and sa-pa-soo-ee. They like sweet potatoes but the white ones, they taste better. I agree to that!  A YSA member fed us last week, she had orange sweet potatoes... it was kind of gross to eat, not that she made them weird or anything.

The Tongan people beautiful singing voices!

There was stake conference for the Reno North Stake, so the YSA ward went. We had two rows filled with people we are teaching and then one or two in the way back! It was a really good conference. The Stake President compared to when he was driving a huge combine up a steep hill and having to respond immediately to this boss's commands, to  immediately following the spirit's promptings.

There was also a recent convert who gave his convertion story. He had a calling in the church for 10 years before he was even a member, and he was just really stubborn to being baptized and didn't understand why he didn't want to be. Last year, the Stake president asked him if he would be security for Elder Christoffersen as he was visiting the area. Because of the time that he spent with him, he really helped him to make the decision. After 18 years he was finally baptized. He said that he wished he hadn't waited so long to be baptized.

We drive a car because since we are over the Tongan ward the whole mission is our boundary (but we don't drive it, that would be too much and too far from the chapel). Big difference from those 35 or so acres back at Temple Square. We walk when we can, but usually we are always at the institute teaching there. We had three lessons going one day! Two pass off lessons, giving to less active members to the elders, and one investigator lesson. It is amazing how many YSA members will come with us to lessons! Sister Christensen came into this area a few transfers ago and has worked so hard to build it to the how it is today. She and Sister Lovstedt gave a training in MLC on "the vision to build." It was very good to hear them go over the training, I learned somethings from afar! They are such great missionaries are working hard to keep the area busy and going.

I think I might have mentioned that we have a flip phone. We rotate each day who uses it. As they have prepped for their training and had MLC, it has been pretty much me on the phone all week, which is kind of hard sometimes, because casual conversation over text? What? I still don't know all the people in the area. It is great to give the phone to the other sisters, they feel the same as well.

WE HAD ZONE CONFERENCE!  So how do I compare and contrast the two different missions?

Lets go with similarities:

1. Mission president gives a training

2. Assistant to the president gives a training

3. We sit at tables

4. Two zones attend

5. Mission President's wife (MPW) speaks once

6. We have a zone break off

7. We eat lunch

8. Talk about missionary work

9. Departing missionaries bare their testimony

10. Special musical number

11. Sister Smith A. was there. (right next to me in fact, common to have zone Conf. with her in the past)

Differences:

1. Elders are everywhere

2. The zone leaders just train in their zones not in the whole big group

3. The APs only had one training

4. Sis. Chesnut (MPW) only had one training

5. It was in a chapel.

6. We played a game called 9 square. I'll take a pic next transfer.

7. President had us prep a 5 min. talk on the Book of Mormon and randomly called on 4 people to speak (I wasn't called, thank goodness, didn't want to relive the MTC talk all over again)

8. Just the sisters sang the music number, so staring out into a sea of elders was kind of weird.

9. We took pictures after.

10. Ran off to a lesson, not a tour/assignment

11. Members made and fed us lunch, I think.

12. Sister Smith and I were introduced to everyone, which was like, no, we are just missionaries like everyone else.

13. We talked about working with members.

14. It felt kind of sporadic, maybe because we where in the gym and everything was more spread out.

15. My only choice was to hand write my notes.

I really loved seeing how much was the same between the two different missions, but I loved the most was thinking about how I get to use every aspect of missionary work now! Working with members, being in people's homes! What I can do to teach with my companions.

Something really funny that happened? Hmm? Well. There were definitely times that were super funny. Hmmm.

I know that this work that I am doing is the Lord's, and that the Book of Mormon is true, which means everything that we as a church believes, does, knows is true and correct in the eyes of God! Temples, priesthood, a living prophet, etc. I am glad to give my time to Him.

Sister Glanzer, The Secretary of the Reno North Zone STLs 

My companions and me

The zone

Reno Tongan and YSA District

Guess what! Tuesday we went on splits, meaning each of us goes with a female member to go do missionary work. That was nerve wrecking. I taught my very first lesson that wasn't the Restoration in person without another missionary to teach with. AAHHHHH! Exciting! It was the CPR, church, pray, read lesson with the rock and rice object lesson. I am so glad that it was a simple lesson. I had a member, Jenny, who was a return missionary of three years be my companion and she is stellar!

Our typical day, wake up at 6 am, leave the apartment at like 6:20pm to go to the Chapel off of Rock aka the Rock Chapel for exercise with some zone in the mission. It isn't our zone. Play some type of athletic game for 30 mins, then we go around in a circle saying miracles of yesterday. Leave at like 7:10 get home and get ready for they day. By 8 am we are starting to plan for the day, then 8:30 we study. 9:30 we make any final preparations, then 10 am we are off doing something.

We have tons of people to teach. We do at least five hours of service each week and that is spread throughout the days. We eat lunch about noon, unless something pushes it back. We eat dinner at 5 pm with members. Tongan food is pretty good. We get fed every other week by the Tongan ward and then by the YSA ward. After dinner, we go back to teaching and trying to contact people to set up times to teach. We make connections with random people when they are outside there homes. 9pm to 9:30 we are back in the apartment, updating the area book and progress record and text people about the next day or so. 10:30pm bed time. If we have time, we have companionship study in there somewhere. Believe it or not, there is even less time for us to have comp study, which isn't good because we need that time to fine tune teaching in a trio! So there is no rest for the Lord's servants as we labor diligently to work and harvest in His vineyard. 

Also, last Tuesday we had District meeting. Part of our zone is in California so only 2/3 of us were at the chapel for it. The others met somewhere else. So for my first traditional proselyting mission district meeting, there were three unique things. 1) There were elders/ the elders out numbered the sisters.  2) The topic was on prepping for a baptismal service (which I have never had to worry about until know)  Finally, 3) There was no one calling us to take a tour! Crazy! 

Oh! I should let you all know!

Zone Leaders: Elders Miner (AZ) and Coronado (Mexico?/Utah)

District Leader (NOT MY COMPANION!): Elder Wight (??)

Area: Reno YSA and Tongan Ward (so like a huge place, you can't go tracting for those two types of people)

Companions: Sisters Lovstedt (Colorado) and Christensen (Utah)

Sister Training Leaders: Sisters Lovstedt (Colorado) and Christensen (Utah)

Also, on Saturday, driving back from the chapel, we had to stop get out of the car and wake a guy up who was passed out in his car. Now that doesn't happen on the Square.

Let's talk a bit about Conference. There were tons of great things said and addressed, but what hit me the most was the very last talk by Elder Andersen. It made me wonder, what was I doing to really follow the prophet? What purposeful actions was I taking that showed in my everyday conduct?

Man, missions really open your eyes to being in the gospel and of the gospel and living the gospel with purpose and thought, verses just word and kind of action.

My invitation, will you read the words of the Prophet and apply them more fully in your life?

PS. My hair is SUPER long! I can pretty much sit on it now! 

Sister Glanzer

We found a cactus that was part of someone's yard decoration

We didn't have many options to put things so almost everything was in the kitchen

We got our carpet cleaned last Thursday

We found a cactus that was part of someone's yard decoration

We found a cactus that was part of someone's yard decoration

A beautiful  sky, the only beauty here, it is all sage brush. Everywhere.