It is late but I just want to give a shout out to everyone who has been like a mother to me! I love you all and you have changed my life! I especially want to say thank you and I love you to my beautiful mom! I am so grateful for you!! 

The district! (right to left: Elder fullmer,
elder wingle, elder oliva, elder tripp. And then sister tayco and I

 Alrighty, back to business. This week has been so good, slow but good! I am grateful for all the experiences I’ve had! One thing that was super fun, was on Friday. We stopped by this old couple’s house to say hi and see how they were doing. (The husband isn’t very active right now) Any way, she wasn’t there but he was! He was working in his garage which is a magical place. This man can build or refurbish anything! Especially cars boats or things like that. He was a welder and he fixed engines for his career so he is a genius when it comes to that. Anyway, we got talking and then he started showing us all of his projects he is working on. He built a truck bed that can electronically lift up and dump out whatever is in the bed. Just like one of those dump trucks would do. It is sooo cool! He was so proud of it haha! He then took us in and showed us his welding projects and he then let us explore the boat he is redoing. He named it the bounty hunter and it is this super cool boat that he has completely gutted. He has been working on it for 8 years now and hopefully he will be done soon. His goal is to get it out on the Colombia River so he can go make some money. There is a fish that has over populated itself and they are paying 4 dollars a fish and then once you get 800 the amount goes up to 8 dollars a fish, hence the name of his boat, bounty hunter! haha! I seriously love this man! He and his wife are so amazing. One day I’ll take a picture of their yard and send it to y’all. It is SO COOL!

The motley girls wanted to be missionaries too!!

In district meeting this week the elders were making fun of sister Tayco and I because we were role playing something and sister Tayco said " oh no, do you need me to hold your hand?" jokingly. The elders about died. Elder Tripp (Zone leader) and Elder Wingle (district leader) thought it would be funny to act out how sisters are with their investigators. they proceeded to stroke each other’s hair and elder Tripp put his hand on E. Wingles leg and Said." don’t worry we are here for you" in a super ridiculous voice. Sister Tayco and I were dying!!!!! hahaha!  Maybe we do act that way but that is the reason all the members like the sisters better ;) haha!

i made cookies the other night.... apparently sister tayco only
 like the middle parts 

 Sunday was super good this week... for many reasons but I was able to talk with the family! It was so fun to see you all and to meet the two new members of the family and to see pics of the other two! Also, the talks and lessons in sacrament and relief society were so good. They all brought such a sweet spirit to the meetings. Our investigator in graham came to church and we ah some less active members there with us which is amazing! I am so glad each time i see these people make choices that bring them closer to their savior. For Sunday dinner we went to the sunrise bishop’s house, these are some of my favorite people ever! They remind me a lot of my family which is fun! Bishop is HILARIOUS and I could sit and talk with him forever! I’m blessed in this area with amazing people for sure. 

 Life is good! The work is great! I love you all so much! I hope that your week is good and full of blessings from the lord! I know this church is true and that it is a blessing to everyone who will come to know that it is true for themselves!

Sister Reynolds

LAST WEEK OF TRANSFER!

Hello my dear people of other states!

This is Shania! i met her while
on my exchange with Sister Hammond!
they are both great people! we had lots of fun together!

 What a week it has been! it has been full of miracles and fun times! We had the chance to have a zone Conference on Tuesday! AMAZING!!! I was so overcome with the spirit as all of the elders and sisters in my area came together to learn and bare testimony to each other! We focused on the Doctrine of Christ as usual and we also talked a lot about charity and love. (Well at least that’s what I got out of it :)) We, just as our individual Zone, shared scriptures that show us that Christ loves us personally. So many good scriptures were shared. The one that I had shared was 2 kings 6:16. I LOVE this scripture! It reminds me that I am never alone even when we think things are hopeless! Our heavenly father is always here for us! What an amazing blessing! Overall, it was a great day!

 I can’t believe that it is the last week of the transfer already! Time is flying and it is freaking me out a bit!! Ha ha! I went on an exchange with a sister who is about to go home. It really put into perspective how fast things go and how I need to appreciate every part of it, even the hard times. I am trying to recommit myself to the work and really try hard to do all I can to improve and help those around me! 

 On that exchange we went to a sweet Indian family’s house. They are recent converts and are trying to better understand the gospel. Their English isn’t the best but they are doing super good from what I can see! Their daughter is about 7 years old and at the end of the lesson she was determined to teach us how to dance in the Indian culture... so we did! I have found my passion in life. Indian music and dancing 😂 they kept telling me and my companion for the day that we were doing really well but that had to be out of pity! Ha ha! It was a fun time though.  I love the experiences I have had thus far on my mission! Memories for the making!

end of the exchange pictures i love them 

 GOOD NEWS!!!!!! Sammi, our investigator in Sunrise, and Paula, our investigator in Graham, are both thinking that baptism on June 10th is what they want to do!!!!!!! YEAHHHHH! Sister Tayco and I are so excited for them. Sammi bore her testimony about the gospel and how it has changed her life on Sunday! These two have such sweet spirits and I’m eternally grateful to know them! Keep them in your prayers if you would! 

 We got to watch the YSA devotional last night as a zone and it was sooo good! I’m not sure if any of you have been able to watch it but if you haven’t I would suggest you watch it! Kim B. Clark was the main speaker as well as his wife. He spoke about Joseph smith and the book of Mormon. It was so powerful. It was very different from other devotional topics I’ve hear but I definitely needed to hear about it! The spirit was there for sure❤

 One last thing and then I will close this narrative of my life... for now :) I have been reading the conference talks from April a lot and one talk in particular stood out to me this week. It was the talk titled 'Don’t Look Around, Look up!' by Elder Yoon Hwan Choi. I absolutely LOVED this talk when it was first given. Especially because it mentions Washington but something that stood out to me as I re-read it was this paragraph, 

"All of us are in the middle of an eternal family. Our role can be a turning point at which significant changes can occur in positive or negative ways. President Hinckley continued, “Never permit yourself to become a weak link in the chain of your generations.”3 Your faithfulness in the gospel will strengthen your family. 

I loved this! I think one of the biggest fears of missionaries is to come home and lose the spirit we have had for the past few years and to fall less active in the church. While reading this I realized that it is so important that I don’t just keep the spirit now but ALWAYS!! He also stated this at the end,

It’s not always easy to look up when your parents are opposed to the gospel, when you are a member of a small Church unit, when your spouse is not a member, when you are still single although you did your best to marry, when a child has strayed, when you find yourself a single parent, when you are physically or emotionally challenged, when you are a victim in a disaster, and so on. Hold on to your faith in those hard times. Look up to Christ for strength, balance, and healing. Through the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, “all things shall work together for [your] good.”8

We need to remember our savior in our times of trials. I know that we all face weak moments in our testimony but we need to LOOK UP! The savior will help us to feel the spirit more. If we do this I know that we won’t become that weak link and that the circumstances we are in won’t affect out testimonies. I hope that all makes sense to you but it really touches my heart! i love you all so very much! i hope that your week is AMAZING!! never forget that I love you all but more importantly the Lord loves you!

 Sister Reynolds

A bit crazy but the work is amazing!

Dont worry, after i laughed we left a word of
wisdom pamphlet with them

The story I am about to tell you is about to young girls, 19 in age to be exact. The story consists of some crazy things that have been asked of them so if you younger people can’t handle it, ignore this email. Okay it’s not that bad but here is a little snippet of what sister Tayco and I had to deal with this past week.

There is a family in the Graham ward boundaries who has one daughter who is a member but is no longer active. We were sent to their home about a month ago to see if they were ready and open for the gospel.  At the time they were not ready but we left them our number and said to call if we could help them with some service... who knew that would backfire... so about 4 days ago we got a call from this family and they started going off on a story about how they were being evicted on the 30th and they needed us to help them find a place to go. We told them we would contact the bishop and see what could happen, Everyday more and more things were being asked for. These people kept calling and started asking us to find them a place to live and they wanted us to come over and fix the batteries in their cars and put fluids in them and also find a home for 10 cats and 5 dogs. I need to state that I barley know how to tie my shoe let alone do all of that! So, in between our work we were on the search for homes that were for sale and people who fixed cars.  Sister Tayco and I finally called Bishop and let him know what was all going down and he told us he would take care of it. I really do feel bad for these poor people and I wish with all my heart that I could fix their problems but I have been taught this past week that I can’t solve every ones problems. I have also come to know the importance of self-reliance, emergency funds, and food storage. I know that there are reasons we are asked to do these things and learn to help ourselves as much as possible. (Bishop gave us an update and said things were working out by the way.) I learn a lot of spiritual things on the mission but I am also learning a lot about the temporal part of life as well!

Sister Motley and one of her sweet little girls Elise 

ANYWAY, life is good here! Ha ha!

A bit crazy but the work is amazing! The members of these wards are so great. In both wards we had members bring nonmembers to church on Sunday! Both really enjoyed being there! Member work is the best work!! I promise :) our investigators are all doing well! We have two of them praying about baptism on June 10th so let’s hope they get a good answer about it!

On Saturday we had a relief society spring social for the graham ward! It was super fun to go to. The woman had different areas where you could go to learn different things like cupcake decorating, in home exercise, and self-reliance stuff. Super cool! I learned a lot and I also realized that Mormons are a crafty bunch! They are all such amazing women! I love them! After we got home I got WAY sick. We had to stay in all day, it was a bummer of a day but I might have caught up on some sleep… maybe!

These kiddos gave me a makeover!
(lip gloss, pink boa and they even put up my hair 😂)
 P.s. these are all of sister motleys kids

I received a blessing from my zone leaders and district leaders that night. I am so incredibly grateful for the power of the priesthood! It is amazing how much it helps. We are all so blessed to know that through Joseph Smith and his sacrifice we have Gods power back on earth! The priesthood is something that I have never and will never be able to doubt about this church. The overwhelming feeling of love and comfort I receive each time a worthy priesthood holder puts his hands on my head is indescribable. I know that the spirit was there and is there each time Gods power is used! I know I’m not supposed to think about marriage… but all I have to say is that I can’t wait to have a worthy holder of the priesthood in my everyday life! Dad, thanks for always being that example to me :) same to my brothers!!

 I really hope that you all have a great week and take the time to bear your testimony to someone! Everyone is in need of this gospel but they don’t always know where to look! We have the answer for them, how great is that? Reach out to someone that you have been thinking about, it might change their lives! I love you all so much and am so grateful for your love and kindness!! 

Sister Reynolds