Graham Washington in the spring...and a canary!

HELLO!

Graham Washington

 How are you all doing? I hope that your past week has been marvelous :) Life in Washington is great and I sure love this weather. Rain every day! It’s my favorite ;) haha but really it hasn’t been bad and now I can leave the house without tights or leggings of some sort so that’s a plus! Everything is blooming and the sun still tries to come out even when the rain is there. i appreciate its effort. 

 Graham is absolutely beautiful! I really love everything about it! My heart is happy every time I drive around and see all the trees, flowers, and animals that are out and about. God is good and He has blessed us with an amazing place to live. I have lots of pictures of the area I’m in so hopefully ya'll can get a better idea of what it looks like. 

 Sister Tayco and I have had lots of fun this week. We have met some interesting people and we will have stories for days by the time our time here is done. I can’t share all of them because I will get carpel tunnel. One that I would like to share though is from sacrament meeting yesterday. So first off, y’all need to know that we double cover 2 wards and their ward council and sacrament times overlap so one of us is with one ward and the other one is in the other ward. This week I was in the Graham ward. While sitting there listening to 

the speakers and trying to listen hard and receive some guidance on somethings I hear one of the speakers start talking about his yellow canary. He proceeded to tell us about how much he and his wife love these birds and how they sing beautifully, especially on a sunny day. He told us that one afternoon the bird wasn't singing and it was odd because it was a beautiful day. He and his wife held the bird and examined it to see what was wrong. During his inspection he found a bump on the bird’s ankle right below a ring that it had on its ankle. (Apparently all the canary's are given this ring when they are born.) His idea was to cut the ring off and see if the swelling would go down. So, he took a pair of pliers and tried to cut the ring off. During this he scraped the birds toe and made it bleed a lot, he also got the ring off by the way. He looked at his wife and told her that the bird was going to die because of the loss of blood, at this point he said his wife was crying and telling him to fix it. So here is what he did. He said the only logical thing he could think of was to cut the bird’s entire foot off..... So, HE DID!!!!!! This man just took the pliers and CUT OF HIS BIRDS FOOT!!!!! I was dying. I’m pretty sure my entire body was moving from trying to hold in laughter! Everyone, when your birds toe is cut please don’t jump to cutting its foot off!. The story ended by him telling us that the bird lived and now he can balance on his little nub foot. Sister Tayco and I will be visiting the family so hopefully I can see this bird for myself and possibly send a picture... hahaha

Sister Tayco and Sister Reynolds

Anyway, life really is good and I am so grateful to be here on this mission. It’s been kind of hard to not think about the fact that mother’s day is soon AND my half way mark. I have been able to make it through though because of the atonement of our savior Jesus Christ. I recently listened to a broadcast of this talk with sister Tayco, it was called the 17 points of the true church. (or something like that) if you can find it PLEASE listen to it! It is his search for the true church and it is powerful. As I was listening, and then studying the 17 points, I have had my testimony of this church grow so much. Through the things that Christ taught us we can know that this is his church and that we are part of something greater than we could ever imagine! it is amazing! 

 I love you all so much and am grateful for your prayers, emails and letters! You are all AMAZING! Have a good week! Love you all

Sister Reynolds

Happy Day after Easter

HELLO!!!!!!!

Bunny Easter cake someone made for us

 Family and friends happy Easter to you all!! I hope that your Easter holiday was all that you had hoped that it would be! Life here in Washington is good and yesterday was such an amazing day!  I am so grateful for Easter. It is and amazing time to reflect how much our Savior and Brother has done for us each individually. I have never appreciated his sufferings for each of us as much as I have this year. Yesterday as I was sitting in church I just had an overwhelming feeling of love and understanding. HE LOVES US! He wants us to be happy and he wants to help us when we are suffering, How amazing! I have come to understand that he is my Savior and YOUR savior too! Heavenly Father has given us so much and the greatest thing that he has given us is his Son. John 11:25-26 has become one of my favorite after yesterday. I know that through Him we will all be able to be resurrected and see each other again. that brings me a lot of peace and comfort knowing that death will not separate me from the ones that I love! Like you! I have taken the invitation from conference to read the Living Christ and I have come to know that it is so important to have a testimony that he lives and love us each! This Gospel is so good!

 This week we had Zone training! It was super good. One of our Zone leaders is from mesa AND he went to Mountain View! What are the odds?! Crazy! We talked a lot about finding and teaching by the spirit. We found examples in the scriptures of people teaching by the spirit and why it is important to do that! I met one of our investigators named Sammi. She is 17yrs old. She is chomping at the bit to get baptized but her parents want her to wait until she is 18. She grew up atheist and it’s amazing to see her progression in her testimony. She is amazing :) She is a barrel racer and she does drill at the rodeos around Washington. She is SUPER good. We get sidetracked sometimes when we go over because she will start talking to me about it and the conversation goes way off topic... I’m working on that :) 

The other day a woman in Graham ward leaned over to me and patted my cheek and said, " I sure do love you and I’m so grateful you’re here in this ward." I was almost in tears. These people have such a sweet spirit! There are two recent converts, a grandmother and grandson, in the Graham ward as well! Their names are Mary and Jason. These two are the sweetest humans! Mary has been through a lot and is now taking care of Jason. We go over often and do service and have short lessons with her. She has such a strong testimony and I love seeing it grow! 

 I love it here! It’s so green and the trees are beautiful and the people are characters! I LOVE IT! I’m so grateful that my heavenly father has sent me here! Ya’ll are amazing!! I’ll talk to you all soon!

Sister Reynolds

Week one of the new transfer...

Family, Friends.

 I must tell you something that cannot be spoken to anyone. I think I am in love with my new area. :) I know it’s only been a week but I really do love it! I am enjoying the area, the people, and my companion! It is a crazy change and there are A LOT of things that I miss about Kent and my old ward but I know I will be able to make just as good of relationships here as well!

we got eater bunnies from someone and by the time mine arrived
home it had some issues. i now have nightmares..

 A little about Sister Tayco, she is from Murray Utah and has been out on her mission for 10 months now! She is the oldest in her family and she is super funny! We have had some good laughs this past week. I am hoping that the video I attach will help you see 1. What life is like here in the rural parts of the mission and 2. What our companionship is like :) she is also an amazing missionary. She has such a strong testimony of this gospel and has a great desire to work hard. She will be good for me and together, I know that miracles are going to happen!

I made chocolate pudding with a somoa girl scout
cookie crust last night. It was way good,
not for us. but for our taste buds :)
this is me and Sister Tayco admiring it

 On my second day here, we were going to check on a member who lived out in the middle of nowhere. We got lost quite a few times and finally ended up at their house, surrounded by trees. And their property was padlocked. I turned to sister Tayco and I assumed we would be seeing ourselves to another destination because the gate was closed and she just looked and me and then made her way through the barbed wire fence surrounding the entire property. She slipped through and then it was my turn. Holding the barbed wire so I wouldn't be impaled, I went through it, in a skirt, and came out alive on the other side with nothing but a mere scratch. (What a tender mercy). We walked up to this families house and the first things I saw were chickens, rabbits, tires, and HUGE trucks that looked like they could run over the great wall of china. Sadly this family wasn't home so we made the trek back to our car and through the fence, (the video is of us on our way out of the fencing). Man, I feel like these are my people and I will fit right in if these are the adventures we will be having this transfer.

 The two different wards we cover seem to be in two different worlds. The Sunrise ward is in more established neighborhoods that are more like something I would see in Renton area and the Graham ward is what I would see in Thatcher. It’s a very small town feel. We live next to cow and horse pastures and around the corner there are alpacas. (I have come to love alpacas and I think they are descendants from giraffes.) Like I said before, we get lost quite often

but I guess it is one way to learn an area but it is hurting our miles. Hopefully in the next week my U-turn skills will be top notch and I’ll know exactly how to weave in and out through traffic to get to the turning lane that sister Tayco frantically remembers is the one we need to be in. I will basically end up driving like those in fast and furious, except going the speed limit because the Tiwi box that we have in our car will yell at me again. I’m not a fan of being yelled at while driving...

 So this past week I went to one of the part member families houses in the area. This was the first time sister Tayco and I had ever seen or talked with them. They have 3 kids and the mom is a less active member and the dad isn’t a member at all but has tried every other religion. The wife has gone with him in the process. We went over to share the new Prince of Peace video that the church came out with for Easter. As we pull into the trailer park it took us 25 min to find there house and then when we got there the children had just eaten a ton of candy and were bouncing off the walls. We were finally able to get everyone rallied together and we watched the video. They seemed to like it and then sister Tayco started talking with the husband about learning more about the church, as she did this I was in charge of keeping the kids attention. That was an impossible thing to do. Long story short, I walked out of that house with fear and anxiety because of the threats that were made from mother to child and child to mother all the while my companion was discussing the gospel with the father. She told me later she didn’t see anything or hear anything that had happened.  Moral of the story, well the thing I got out of that day, is to not tell my children they are going to the ”chokie” and not to let my kids do karate on me or their siblings. But again, I really do love these people I’m working with, I promise :)

 Well, life is good and I’m grateful for this new adventure that I am starting. I have started reading the Book of Mormon again with the whole mission and I have learned so much in the past couple of days and my testimony has definitely been strengthened! I am grateful for this gospel and the chance we have to become better people every day! I hope that each of you know how much I love you. You are all so amazing and I’m grateful to know you all :) have an amazing week!

Sister Reynolds

Transfer news...

 walking a trail for contacting and i liked the leaf in the tree 

This week has been crazy and never ending! i thought that we were stuck on each day for at least 5 years. Well not really but it was kind of ridiculous. Anyway, it was a good week though. We were able to work with the members a lot and started finding less active members. Our bishop and mission president told us for our ward specifically that working with the less active members will be the most help in finding people to teach! I hope that James hill will see more progress by trying that out. 

So, transfer calls were on Sunday. I got a call from the Zone Leaders and I am being transferred out of the Zone. It is bittersweet. Sweet because I am going to be able to learn so much and do new things! It is sad because I am in love with this ward I’m in. I feel like I’m leaving my 2nd family and I’m not too fond of that. We had FHE last night so I had the chance to say goodbye to a lot of them. They made me bear my testimony and then the tears started flowing. I have made great relationships that I know will last a lifetime. So many of these people have influenced my life in such great ways! Okay. Enough sappy stuff. I will be serving in the Graham Washington area! My companion is Sister Tayco and we will be double covering. (2 wards) I am excited to go be done in what the people call the boonies of Washington! Woot woot! I’ll probably fit in ;) I’ll give a thorough update on how it all goes next week!

 last night at FHE

 Sister Skousen and I are trying to go do the things I’ve wanted to do for the past 7 months in one day. Before 2 pm. I’m not sure that will happen but we'll see :) we had the chance to go to dinner on Saturday night with some of the sisters from our ward! It was fun to have a 'girls night' while the men were at the priesthood session. (Even though that 'girl’s night' only lasted an hour :)) 

 General conference was SOOO GOOD! Man I wish it didn’t go as fast as it does. I could listen to it all week! There are too many good talks to talk about but a few that stood out to me were the talks that mentioned Seattle missions, and the talk about investigators from the man who was a convert himself. All the talks were so powerful and I am excited to apply them to my life! President Monson’s talk spoke me as well. What a blessing to be reminded of the importance of the Book of Mormon. I would invite you to do what our prophet asked and to start reading the Book of Mormon again, every day! I know that it will be a blessing to our life if we do so!

Moss

 I love you all so much! I hope you have an amazing week!

 Sister Reynolds

Sara McGhie from the ward

Sister Skousen and Sister Reynolds showing their skills

Last week of the transfer!

 How is everyone this week?! I hope you are all just peachy keen! I am doing well. My 5th transfer is coming to a close which is crazy to think about! It has been filled with ups and downs but looking back I really can only remember the ups! I find that’s the way it is every day. Even if it was hard I seem to be able to focus on the good things that have happened. I have made it a goal to find a way that God has played a role in my life each and every day. I have found myself being a much more grateful daughter as I have done this. IT’S AMAZING! I hope that i will be able to keep doing this throughout my life so I can continue to count my blessings even in the hard times.

THE SKY WAS OUT!!!!! IT IS STILL BLUE!! I thought it would forever be gray

 So I hope that I will be able to stay another transfer but I’m pushing my luck with how long I have been in this area. Every one of the sisters who I came out with are still in their original areas which is super cool! Most of them but 2 of us are training so they are going to be safe for at least another transfer but as for me and the other sister. We can only pray to stay :) wherever the lord needs me though I will go and be happy about it. I may cry a wee bit, but I will wear a smile as well 😁

 So this week was a good one. we had our ward game night on Tuesday and then we had Zone conference on Friday and we helped Lauren, our recent convert, with some yard work and painting on Saturday. The zone conference was super good. We focused on:

The Doctrine of Christ
Being representative of Christ
Teaching the Doctrine of Christ
The Easter Initiative “Prince of Peace”
Attributes of Christ
Goal Setting and Planning

Washington Federal Way Mission Faith Feast. Hark – Mark- Embark.

Lauren, recent convert

It was all so good! I am super excited for the Easter initiative to come out on March 31st! Be looking for it, it is super powerful. On April 6th we are starting our Washington Federal Way Faith Feast thing. We all got a new paperback Book of Mormon and we will be marking the Doctrine of Christ and Christ like attributes. We have to read about 8 pages a day to finish at the goal. it will require lots of diligence but i am excited to be able to do this as a mission and strengthen my faith in the Book of Mormon!

 Helping Lauren was super fun! Her mom was there and it was a good chance to get to know her and help her see us Mormons aren’t that crazy... maybe we weren't the best ones to show her that but we think she likes us a wee bit more. The chance to do that is definitely a miracle from our Heavenly Father. We also had lunch with her. She ordered me sushi and her and Sister Skousen got teriyaki. I got what is called the Seahawk roll. Man alive it was so good! I definitely would give it a go again :) 

the trees are blooming 

 I hope everyone was able to watch or listen to the women’s broadcast for conference. (Even if you aren’t a woman) it was an amazing meeting. The spirit was so strong and I am so grateful for the invitations that were given to come closer to Christ and to gain faith in Him. I sure do love you all and am so grateful for everything that you all do for me! I hope your week continues to go well!

Sister Reynolds

cool Honduras box one of our members have