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

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