Week 71: "I want Jesus!" - Jaden

Hello loving family and friends! This week flew by sooooo fast. Not

fair! Anyway, lots of miraculous things happened - the Lord really

made things happen cuz we had tons of meetings and not a lot of times,

but he sure consecrated the time we did have.

Happy Birthday Sister Seigfried!!

Thanks Mom and family for sending me all those cute notes from

reunion! I love them!

Shout out to my sibs: I would love a letter from each of you before my

mission ends. If that's possible, I would really love that! Thanks!

So the greatest miracle I want to share is the miracle of Kalimah! I

think I told you about her last week: a member brought her to general

conference on Sunday and this week's he has progressed so much!!!

She's getting baptized on the 24th and she's owning it!! She told so

many people at church yesterday about her baptism and she participated

in the classes like a member. She is so excited to be baptized and I

love her! She has a 3 year old son named Jaden and yesterday when we

were teaching her the restoration, the Spirit was super strong and her

son, who is a little crazy whispered "I want Jesus!" And we just

looked at him like..... What? :) just a few minutes prior I tried

distracting him by showing him pictures of Christ and I whispered just

the simple truths: that He knows him and loves him so much. Then a few

minutes after hearing those truths he said that - it was a tender

experience and brought Kalimah to tears. She has had soooo many

spiritual confirmations and it has been such a blessing to be there

with her during those confirmations. She says some pretty cool things

sometimes that really just hit us how prepared she totally is. It is

truly amazing!!

I love you all so much!! Have an amazing week!!

Con todo mi corazón y mi amor,

Hermana Shumway

MLC

Exchanges with the Pratt Sisters!! Sister Peterson and
Sister Tafua!! #prattskillinit

Weel 68: "Now....jump into my arms!!"

Hellooooooo from Kansas!!!!!

So this week was good as they all are as a missionary :) and all of
them forever after will be because missions don't end and we can
always be disciples of Christ!

For some reason a TON of people we met and taught this week got
anti-ed, meaning they "researched" the Church, found information they
didn't understand fully, then told us they didn't want us to come
back, EVEN THOUGH after we taught them the Restoration and had a
spiritual experience with them we TOLD them that Satan doesn't want
them to find the truth or have everlasting life or even just be happy
and will do all he can to turn them away from Christ's gospel by
putting doubts in their head through their "research" or friends
or....whatever and to make sure they ASK US if they have questions or
concerns and we can help them understand. None of them did that
though. :( a decision that will determine their destiny... So that was
way sad. But that just means there are lots more other people who can
and want to be baptized!!

This week we got new missionaries!!!! So Sister Bringhurst and I got
to take out a couple Sisters and get to WORK for a few hours!! The
goal was to help them invite someone to be baptized!! I was with
Sister Samani and it was so fun! I loved just getting to knock doors
and talk to everyone :)) I loved seeing all the miracles with a new
Sister and helping her have an awesome first day! It caused me to
reflect on my first day in Kansas....inviting someone to be baptized
and read the Book of Mormon at a gas station :) I still remember how
willing he was to follow Christ! Gas station contacting...always good
cuz the people can't go anywhere! Haha

A lot of the part member families we are working with... Don't get how
super important the Gospel is to live RIGHT NOW. So we had a couple
lessons with the member part of the part member families testifying
HARD CORE how time is running out and now is the time and day of their
salvation. I hope they felt the Spirit so we can teach their families
and help them progress.

Yesterday, we found another LOST SHEEP!!!! It was awesome! We met her
a few weeks ago and thought she was a potential investigator, but then
when we went to follow up with her yesterday, we were teaching her
about the story of the Book of Mormon and when Jesus Christ came and
taught the people in the Americas and she was super excited to read
it! Then I told her how baptism is so important to Jesus Christ, that
was the first thing he taught to the people here - ya know warming up
to the challenge for baptism - and she all of a sudden told us she was
baptized in the LDS church when she was 14!!!! We were like WHAT!?!
And she wants us to teach her kids!!! It was great :) I love it!

Anyway....missionary life is the best and I love it. And I love you.
And I love Jesus Christ.
The end!

Con todo mi corazón y mi amor,

Hermana Shumway


P.S. Happy Anniversary to Aaron and Alicia!! Love you guys!!

Sister Samani and I!!

Ward camp-out fun!! I love these people!!

#nofilter

Week 70: We Thank Thee, Oh God, for a Prophet!!

What's up from Wichita!!!

 I forgot to say thank you to Mom for sending me a post card last
 week!! I love that you're doing that :)

This week was super great! With lots of great things with of course
some disappointing things. But the BEST thing was watching General
Conference and feeling the reality of the perfection of Jesus Christ's
Church on the Earth. Can you deny the confirming witness from the
Spirit that those men are called of God? Nope! I have never been more
excited to read and reread the talks!!

So on exchanges this week I was riding another Sister's bike and it
got STOLEN!! Yeah. That was a sad realization when we got out of the
appointment! Haha very interesting. No one wanted to hear from a girl
on a bike....that's fine. You'll just hear it on foot ;) haha

Talking about general conference and a living Prophet on the Earth
today definitely softened some hearts this week!! Especially with one
of our investigators named Marlo. When we first met her she
immediately told us she wasn't interested. We were in her neighborhood
again this past week when she just happened to step outside her home!
We followed up with the past commitment we extended and started
telling her about general conference!! She immediately opened up and
told us her life story of spiritual experiences and accepted a Book of
Mormon and wanted to learn more!!! She did watch some of conference
this weekend and we are excited to talk to her more!!

Super funny thing happened this week!! We went to dinner at a member's
elderly home apartment place and she paraded us all around the
cafeteria place introducing us to everyone and all her friends and
they were asking us all these questions about what we do and one of
them, Sue, came over to our table later and asked if we would come and
meet with her and answer some of her questions!! Who woulda thought!?
It was funny :) she read the Book of Mormon when she was 17!! I just
wanted to record our whole time there...it was pretty funny :)

Another miracle!! Before conference on Sunday we were feeling a little
discouraged with the lack of people desiring to progress and be
baptized. We said a prayer when we left the apartment just PLEADING
with the Lord to help us find the people who are prepared. We went and
saw someone we met the night before, and she had been reading in the
Book of Mormon and wants to know more and be baptized!!! It was
awesome. Total miracle and answer to prayer. That was really watered
down, but I promise it was such a tender mercy.

I love everything about this, with all the bitter and the sweet. :)

 Con todo mi amor y mi corazón,

Hermana Shumway

Oh snap!!! Another miracle! A member brought a friend to conference
and she LOVED IT!!! She felt the spirit strongly and knows those men
are called of God. Tender mercies all around even when things are
looking bleak. Faith in Jesus Christ is really all we need to take
part in the Lord's miracles. :) I love Him!

Zone conference.

Mom - isn't this awesome?!

We wrote a song last week! It's super good and everyone loves
it!! I'll send it soon.

Week 69: "He was kind of depressed.....so we taught him the Law of Chastity."

A missionary classic. Oh we laughed so hard!!! Hahahaha the Elders
said it was exactly what their investigator needed though!

Sooo this week in Kansas was awesome! We had zone conference on
Wednesday where I had to give my departing testimony cuuuuuz the next
zone conference is after I go home! So that was dumb! But good, I'm
sure it would have been way worse if I actually do go home soon. But
zone conference was sure awesome. I love learning from President Bell.
He is such an inspired man and I look up to him so much! He always
focuses on the Atonement and building faith in Christ. He is
definitely helping me lay a great foundation for life. My favorite
part of zone conference was when President and Sister Bell let us as
them questions about marriage and family. They set up a cute little
living room complete with a rug and a fake fireplace! (They are so
cute!) That was very insightful!

A really awesome thing we started doing this week is practicing
teaching on the members! So this is how it works. We go to their home,
they choose who they want to pretend to be (non members), pick their
situation (first visit or follow up visit) and then we teach them like
we would teach their friends!! It was miraculous and super edifying
for all!! It was so much easier to teach in a home where the Holy
Ghost already is!!! It was awesome for the members because afterwards
they felt so much more motivation to share the gospel with the people
they were acting as. We are going to keep doing it!!! One of the
members is actually setting up a dinner and lesson in their home with
us and their friends! Keep you posted on that!

Hey! Conference is this weekend!!!! 3 new apostles! It's going to be
crazy cool. We have an investigator named Cashley who is preparing to
be baptized on October 24th (he has been taught forever and finally
made a solid commitment to ACT!!!) told us that one thing he does not
like is that he has been in church for his whole life and he never
knew there was a prophet on the earth today until he came to the LDS
church. He was very upset about that! He thinks we should be talking
about that all the time! The whole world needs to know what a prophet
of God is saying!! So....because of Cashley, and for the sake of
others who feel as he does, invite a friend to listen to God's
ordained servants by watching General Conference this weekend! Do it
out of love and offer some food and they can't say no! Just kidding.
:) really. We all need to know how to prepare for the Second Coming of
Jesus Christ.

MIRACLES. Tons happened this week. One that stands out to me today is
Bertha! We taught Bertha the restoration on the doorstep and gave her
a Book of Mormon and invited her to read it and be baptized. We didn't
follow up for a long time because we wrote down her phone number
wrong! Finally we saw her again and she had read some and felt the
Spirit. Right then we invited her again to be baptized on a specific
date. She accepted and we told her what to do to prepare. She is
already living the commandments!!! We then invited her to pray about
the date specifically. She did and she said she felt joy and peace!!
It was a miracle! We love her and are excited to help her! And Cashley
(as mentioned above) accepted to be baptized next month too! He is
really expecting and looking forward to feeling the fire of the Holy
Ghost :) he knows his stuff!

Well family and friends. I love you and I love Kansas. And Oklahoma :) haha
I love being a missionary. This week I learned through exchanges with
Sister Furner that we don't really want to be confident....would you
describe the Savior as being confident? Yeah..that made us ponder a
lot. Our confidence should come from knowing who we are as Daughters
of God and knowing that because of that divine nature, our potential
is....limitless! Our confidence lies in knowing who we are and knowing
who Christ is. During Christ's 40 day fast, Satan's attacks were to
persuade Christ to deny His own divine nature. "If you are the Son of
God..." and he will try to get us to do the same. There is SO much
power in just knowing who we are.
Heavenly Father loves us.
Come listen to a prophet's voice this weekend :) and tell everyone
else to do so as well!!!

I lalalalalalovvvve you!!!

Con todo mi corazón y mi amor,

Hermana Shumway

Posterity pic!! Sister Rosell is training.

Went to McDonald's.....she ordered an oreo mcflurry....got
a frappe instead.....yeah. That's a bummer. Can't even give
it away!

I love Sister Furner!!!

Exchange lunch with the Newton Sisters!