The Moment of Truth - October 19, 2015

ASH FLATS, ARKANSAS 

is my new home starting on Thursday! I am so so excited about it! I have heard really great things about it. My new companion will be Sister Palmer. If I remember right I met her somewhere and she is a super cute missionary! She is also a Sister Training Leader, so that's awesome :) From what I have heard from missionaries 

Sister Millett is also leaving the area. She is going to Skiatook, Oklahoma. We are on completely different ends of  the mission. So Bolivar will be shotgunned again. (shotgunned: where both missionaries leave an area.)

 I shotgunned into Bolivar so it is kinda crazy that I am shotgunning out as well. I have had a blast in Bolivar and I have met some amazing people as well but I am definitely ready for a change. It has been really strange to say good-bye to people and kind of surreal. I post lots of pictures as well.

This has been such a great week, so busy!!

Monday was fun. This Less Active we have been teaching did my nails so that was fun. :) 

We had an amazing lesson with our newer investigator Dalton! We were teaching him the plan of salvation and talking about the celestial kingdom. It was the perfect entrance for me to ask him if he will be baptized on Dec 12. He said he would if he comes to know it is true! 

He is awesome! We were going to have one more lesson with him tonight but they are all sick :( But I have loved teaching him. 

Tuesday was Sister Milletts Birthday! We went up the the Lewis's house and had a camp fire and roasted hot dogs. It was pretty fun! 

Wednesday we went down to springfield for zone training. Just a meeting for all the missionaries in the stake. We all had to instruct. We did ours on Working hard and Working Effectively. It went really well. I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be. Then we went and got 5 guys because Sister Millett had never been. Then we spent f o r e v e r at Firestone getting our oil changed. Not watching Ellen was really hard, haha! 

Thursday we successfully weekly planned, as in we weekly planned in a timely manner with minimal breaks. :) haha! We had some great lessons. Taught Andrew and Kira the 10 commandments with the hand signs. It was fun. 

We had a lesson with the Butler family! Guess who is getting baptized in 5 weeks??? They are!!! I am so excited and it is even better because they are excited and looking forward to it. November 21 is the day. Hopefully I'll be able to come back and see it. I don't know though... But they are so amazing. All that can go to seminary every morning. I just love them to death! Bonnie the grandma started crying Sunday when we were leaving. We went over after church for brunch and she gave us big hugs and cried. It was so sad! I'll miss them. 

Friday we had exchanges and I was with Sister Croghan from Stockton. It was great! We are destined to be companions one day. We had so much fun! We went out to Buffalo and saw our amazing Less Actives that we visit there. We were supposed to have dinner with our Recent Convert, Jeanne, and her family but her son hurt his toe and had to go to the insta-care so she didn't come. We ended up eating at Pizza Hut with her husband. He is a since teacher at one of the high schools around here so all we talked about was science things. It wasn't too bad though. Tomorrow we are going back to buffalo so we can say goodbye to people. 

Saturday we had to leave super early so we could exchange back then sister millett and I drove down to Springfield to help with the giant Geneology fair. It was fun. I saw sister streadbeck and she is awesome. We basically just switch companions when we see the YSA Sisters, haha! It was fun to help there. We drove back up around 5 and went to the Gainers to carve pumpkins with their family. The kids are so cute! My sister sent me a package with small plastic hearts to remember Christ's love for us. So I gave them all one, they love them! Thanks Ashley! 

Then our transfer calls came and we were so excited that night! 

Sunday we were finally back to a normal church schedule after general conference and stake conference. We spent the rest of the day saying good-bye to people. It wasn't fun to say goodbye but definitely fun to talk with the members more. :) Our next couple of days will be packing, cleaning, and saying goodbye. Thursday morning we go down to mount vernon and heard to our next areas. 

It has been so much fun in Bolivar, crazy but fun! I'm glad I got to spend the first part of my mission here. By thursday I'll have spent 5 1/2 months here! It is sad to think I am 1/3 done with my mission. Not sure how I feel about that. But I'm glad I still have a year to go! 

I love you all and miss you lots! 

I'll give you my new address next week. 

Love, 

Sister Frederickson

Six Days until Transfer Calls - October 12, 2015

Hello!

This has been such a long week. Wow! Last Monday we drove down to Bass Pro Shop in Springfield. It is Sister Milletts birthday tomorrow and I wanted to surprise her. She loves fishing and hunting so I figured it would be the perfect place for her. :) The whole zone came minus a companionship. We had a lot of fun! We even got to eat at the restaurant upstairs. Two very kind people paid for all of us, it was so so sweet! We don't know who it was but our waitress told us our check was paid for. Then we all got matching bass pro shop hats to remember the occasion by. We stayed in the Springfield a little longer and went winter shopping with the sisters in the YSA ward. We had so much fun! 

I've been ponderizing this week. It been so great! My scripture was D&C 8:2-3. I have been studying revelation a lot and as I was reading in one of the past ensigns this week an article mentioned that scripture. IT was cool to see the others view on it plus some other thoughts on revelation. I can't wait to pick a new one for this week. 

Not much else happened this week. We had some good lessons with our investigators this week. No new baptism dates though. Hopefully this week! 

Stake conference was Saturday and Sunday. It was really good! our mission president and his wife came up and spoke on Sunday. It was great to see them. 

Sorry this is so short! Email time just goes way too fast! 

Hope you are doing well! love you!

Love,

Sister Frederickson

 

Three New Investigators - October 5, 2015

Hey everyone! 

It has been a great week! On Monday we had a lesson with our new investigator Dalton. He moved in with Gallions and we had a great dinner and Family Home Evening with them. We had a really powerful lesson on the Restoration. It was amazing! He is so prepared and ready to learn. It is going to be fun teaching him. We have another lesson with him tomorrow night. We are excited for it. Brother Gallion is the seminary teacher for the Buffalo area so Dalton has been attending every morning. He watched conference this weekend and said that he was able to recognize things they had learned about in Seminary. It is really neat!

Tuesday we went up to Buffalo again. Met with the Zundels. They are a new family in the ward that moved up here from utah. They are so neat and a great example of showing faith. They are really cool!

After we saw the Zundels we went down the street to see the Listers. Jimmy has been a member for 40+ years and is inactive. Dorthy has been taking the lessons and really enjoys learning. We have been teaching them for a long time. Since before I got here. Anyways, they love what we share so much that they invited their friends over to hear the lesson. We were really excited about it. Their friends Margie and Virgil came over. Interesting lesson to say the least! As missionaries we aren't supposed to discuss politics and lets just say we didn't really follow that for 2 hours. They were very enthusiastic to see what view our church has on a lot of what is going on in the world. They are super nice people though. Haha! We will see what happens with them in the next couple of weeks. Virgil seemed interested in what else we had to say. But the really neat part of the lesson was that the Listers were helping us answer their questions and just kept telling them how amazing the Book of Mormon is, why we need to have faith, and the importance of going to church. It was really neat to hear their testimonies come to life as they shared it with their friends. Crazy but really good lesson. :) 

We finally got a lesson with one of recent converts, Mailey. She has been so busy this summer we haven't seen her in months. We were able to have a really fast lesson with her. It was really fast! like 10 minutes fast. But she is doing good and still reading the Book of Mormon. Things are finally slowing down for her so we can see her more. 

Tuesday night we had a lesson on the south side of boundaries in the boonies. I had been there many many times and thought I knew how to get home. I guess I made a wrong turn somewhere. haha! We ended up mostly lost in the middle of nowhere in the pitch black. We turned on our GPS and put in our home. Took us almost an hour to get there. Our GPS really enjoys to take the long dirt roads that last forever. We barely made it home on time. It all turned out good. Just a long end to a long day. 

Wednesday we decided to go tracting after one of our appointments fell through. We met this really cool lady, Bree. She has only lived in Bolivar for a year and has a really cute family. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she said she would read it. It was really really neat! We hope things will continue to progress for her. :) 

Wednesday we went to the Fortners for dinner. It was really neat. They used to live in the boonies but just moved to Bolivar. Brother Fortner is really talented with wood working and has made a lot of the furniture in their home. It is such a beautiful home! We had so much fun with them. He is really proud of his new garage/shop. He took us on a tour of it after dinner. He showed us all of his rocking chairs, cast iron irons, and all his other garage sale finds. It was fun to see all of his things. He has this old biblical instrument called a Psaltery. He let me play it. It was really fun! First time I have ever played an instrument and you could tell it was a song, haha! Maybe I was just born to play the Psaltery :) 

We had some good BBQ at Boones on Friday. The Byers took us there then to Dairy Queen for dessert. I think I eat WAY too much ice cream from DQ but can't say no to members :) and sometimes you just need some ice cream. It was a really fun evening. They are really nice. They have an amazing conversion story. They used to be Jewish but converted about 8 years ago. We love talking with them. 

We had a really great lesson with the Butler Family on Friday. The mom Michelle has been reading the Book of Mormon and is SO excited about it. She loves it and KNOWS this church is true! She was telling all the kids how much it means to her and how she wants to get baptized. She was just glowing with the spirit! It was amazing. We are trying to find a baptism they can go to so the kids can see what it is like. Some of the kids have prayed about it but they are still reading the Book of Mormon and love it! Even their cousin wants to come to church with them and learn more. Super cool! 

Saturday and Sunday we watched conference at the church building here in Bolivar. Conference was so amazing! I loved it. I learned so much but I feel like I have to go back a process it all and really find ways to apply what I learned. One of my favorite talks was by President Uchtdorf. He is so right, the gospel doesn't have to be complicated or hard to live. Remember the simple steps of following the commandments. We just have to trust in the Lord with what we are doing. He wants us to be happy and we are happiest when we do what He wants us to. "You have Everlasting Potential & Divine Worth."Never forget that! We all have a great divine potential that we can uncover as we live the simple truths of the gospel. 

All those talks were amazing and with Devin G. Durrant I want to invite you all the Ponder-ize. Pick a scripture each week, look over it, place it somewhere you see each day, and ponder it. I'm excited to take this challenge and ponder-ize a new scripture each week. I know we will be blessed with a deeper knowledge of the scriptures as we do so. Share with me your scripture and I'll share with you mine. :) I hope y'all are excited for this! 

Everyone seems to be having surgery lately so we haven't been able to see a lot of people we normally see but we have also met some new people so that's good. 

I hope y'all have a great week! I love you all and miss you! 

Love, Sister Frederickson

Zone Conference, Women's Conference, and a Birthday - September 28, 2015

Hey everyone! 

I have about 5 minutes so this is going to be a fast letter but it will be better next week :) 

SO we saved a turtle... in the church parking lot. Gotta love the Missouri life. 

And had zone conference on Tuesday. It was really good and I got to Sister Ritter and Sister Rushton, they are amazing and I love them. They have both been companions with Sister Booms. It was a really good zone conference. We learned about becoming disciples of Christ. I learned a lot but forgot my notes at home... oops. It was great though! We are really lucky to have President Loveland and so many amazing missionaries in the ABM to give us instruction. 

Friday the mission office called and sang me happy birthday so that was really neat. They are so nice! I had a great birthday yesterday. I got many sweet birthday texts from our district :) Definitely spoiled at the Lewis's with a great birthday dinner and cake. Watched the blood moon from our balcony while drinking yummy Apple Beer (thank you family!). It was an amazing day with lots of special people. And our recent convert got up during testimony meeting and shared an amazing simple testimony. It was awesome! 

The Relief Society put together a dinner before the womens broadcast so we went over to the church early to help set up. We got to know some of the sisters better so that was fun. Sister Brickey brought her friend Margaret and another friend as well so that was really cool. A lot of sisters showed up. It was fun! I really enjoyed all the talks from the broadcast. It was so amazing to hear from the sweet sisters and President Uchtdorf. We all have a great divine nature. We are all so special in our Heavenly Fathers eyes. Never forget that! 

I think that is all the big stuff from this week. Thank you for all the birthday wishes! I can't believe I am 20 and on a mission but there is no place I would rather be :) I am so happy and grateful to be here right now. 

I love you all so much and miss you lots and lots! 

Love, Sister Frederickson

Who Knew Bolivar Could be Fun? - September 21, 2015

Hello! 

This has been a great week! Last Monday Sister Millett and I decided that we are going to throw ourselves a birthday party on conference weekend. It is right between our birthdays! It is going to be a blast, haha! We even got ourselves a cake mix and candles. We are pretty excited for it :) 

Saturday morning the stake had a stake relief society breakfast event with speakers. It was really good. It was all about changing your heart and becoming stronger in the gospel. It was really cool. It was a good reminder that we are all children of our Heavenly Father and he loves us so much. We had Tyler's baptism Saturday night. It was really awesome! The power didn't go off at this baptism so that was a plus. It was really sweet. His stepmom, Sister Lewis gave a really nice talk on baptism and the Holy Ghost. I'm so happy for Tyler. He is a really cool kid. Calvin baptized him, he just got home from his mission a couple months ago and they have been best friends since. They are complete goofs though! We had spent Saturday afternoon helping Sister Lewis make cookies and brownies for after the baptism. It was a really fun day. 

Tuesday we were in Buffalo finding people on the ward list that we didn't know. We saw a name on the list and I had never seen it before. We go and find the house. This woman answers the door while she is on the phone but she ushers us in. That never happens by the way. We always get told to go away or something where they just don't want us. Anyways, she is trying to talk to us while she is on hold with someone. We find out that she is who we were looking for. We sat and talked with her for awhile and got to know her better. We found out that she has been wanting to come to church for a couple weeks but didn't know what time and every time she has tried in the past it was stake conference or something so no one was there. We were able to tell her the time and invite her to church. AND, she came to church on Sunday! It was really neat! She only stayed for sacrament but she is going to stay the whole time next week. She is so sweet! I am so happy that Heavenly Father directed us to her! Definitely a miracle! 

We also saw another less active on Wednesday. She is younger, just got married and moved here. She has been to church a couple of times but not very often. She is super sweet and is willing to come on exchanges with us. And the missionaries in Utah were reteaching her the lessons and she wants us to start doing that so she can strengthen her testimony more and start being more active. We are so excited! It has been a week of miracles. Wednesday night we went to mutual and one of the members comes up to us and is like 'did you know there is this young man that has been coming every week for a year' and we had no idea! No one had told us! He moved in with one of the members this week and is going to start coming to church. We met him and he sounds pretty interested so hopefully we can start teaching him soon. 

I'm out of time but this was a week full of miracles. I am so grateful for everything that has happened. I'm so excited for women's conference this week, general conference next week, and stake conference the following week. We also have zone conference on Tuesday so there are lots of spiritual experience that are coming our way. I am so happy to listen to all the talks! They are always so full of inspiration and all that good stuff. It is going to be a great couple of weeks. 

I love you all and I love hearing from you.  Miss y'all lots and lots! 

Love, 

Sister Frederickson

The members give us food all the time so that is the picture of the over flowing counter. We never go hungry thankfully #blessed. 

Mini Road Trips and Trucks - September 14, 2015

Hey Y'all! 

This has been such an exciting/long week. I feel like I have been all over the mission now. Just kidding only to Nevada, MO and Miami, Ok. 

Let's just with Monday. After a really long preparation day we had a dinner at the really neat ladies house. Her name is Margaret. Sister Bailey and I had dinner with the Brickeys (part member family) and this monday she invited both of us to her home. We had a really good meal. She is from the Middle east (somewhere really cool but I forgot) and made us all this middle eastern food. We had stuffed grape leaves, stuffed eggplants, mint and parsley salad, rice, some mystery meat biscuit (it was really good though!) and a couple other things I forgot. It was all really good food. She had been planning this meal for 2 weeks and was so excited to have us come over. She is so sweet! Then she ordered these really good desserts from somewhere. They were like puff pastry dough filled with nuts with a sweet syrup on top. They were delicious! She also gave Sister Millett and I book marks that were hand made in Jerusalem. We were definitely spoiled and it was such a nice dinner. She is really strong in her Baptist faith. We all had a good time. I left SO full! I don't think I have ever eaten so much food in my life! After dinner she taught us how to play Mexican Train. It was a really confusing way to play it though. haha! 

Tuesday was great too. We started off with some service at a local thrift shop. Then we went to Buffalo with the Bishop and his wife, Sister Wilkins. They took us out to lunch before at a Chinese buffet in town. They are so sweet. We met the DeLaMares there and went on splits. I went with Sister Wilkins and Sister Millett went with Sister DeLaMare to go see some less active members. Together we were able to see a lot of people and it was really fun. It was my first time on splits. We had a really good day. And it rained just like every other time we go to Buffalo. I think I have only been 2 times when it hasn't rained. 

Wednesday we did some tracting with no luck but thats okay. This is where our road trip begins. We had to drive to Miami (pronounced My-am-ah) oklahoma. That is where sister Millett came from. she left in such a rush she wasn't able to say goodbye to people or even get everything she needed and we needed to switch cars. It was about a two hour drive to there from bolivar. We got some dinner and then met a lot of members she wanted to say goodbye to. They are so funny! We got some really cool pictures with this building. Route 66 goes right through town. We had a fun night in Miami. We spent the night there and then we drove back to joplin at the transfer point (where all the missionaries meet to move around) to drop off the miami car, drove another car to the mount vernon transfer point then back to Joplin. From Joplin we had to drive up to Nevada (pronounced Ne-ve-da) to get the rest of sister milletts things. It was a long day with lots of driving. We did get a truck though so that is pretty sweet! It is a Nissan Forrester (I think/I'm pretty sure). Lots of driving but we got done everything we needed to and we had just enough time to make it back for our dinner appointment full of homemade pizza!

Friday was our weekly planning day so nothing too exciting there. This week we saw our investigator Tyler a lot because this weekend is his baptism! Yay! 

Saturday we went to the Country Days Festival in the town square. It was so fun! We talked to some baptist preachers and got rejected but thats ok! We keep on trying. They also had a really cool car show and Mickey and Minnie Mouse were there. Who needs Disney Land when you have Bolivar, MO? We drove down to springfield to do this giant service project. We went with a bunch of other missionaries in our zone to it. We packed food for this non profit. I think it is called Fight Against Hungary. SO many people were there and it was so much fun! I even saw some of the youth from bolivar there so that was cool. 

Well I think that has been our week! It was really good though and it was even better to stay busy. I have learned so much about being happy. You are the most happy when you are forgetting yourself and working hard. It is always best to focus on other people and look for things you can do for them. 

I love you all so much! 

Love,
Sister frederickson