{ s e r v e }

This week was FILLED with service.

All we did was serve.

ALL THE SERVICE = we did.

But a really wonderful miracle came out of it!

There is a less-active woman who we have been working with ever since I got to Logansport. She hasn't attended church in years and years and her husband isn't a member, but she accepted the service we offered her one day and so every week for almost a month we have gone over to her house and helped her with anything and everything!

Even really whatevs stuff like sorting and organizing her birthday cards.

We found one that was "from" her cat... #nojudgment 

She never really talks about the church and her husband we rarely saw and didn't seem interested, but. We continued to keep coming and still be her friend. But also...

We're missionaries.

So we invited them to church anyway.

Aaaaaaaand...

THEY CAME!!!

For the first time in over 10 years (her) and for the first time ever (him)!!!

It really grew my testimony that this gospel is purely about love and emulating the Savior.

This is the church of J E S U S  C H R I S T, people!

We shouldn't judge people's backgrounds or current struggles, but continually offer love and support.

The Savior said, "Come unto me."

Not "Come unto me... but only you and you."

Who do we know in our lives who is seeking and calling out for help? Are we taking the time to hear and find them?

The greatest miracles can come from the smallest acts of kindness.

Sincerely, Sister Soloa'i

 Feeding the homeless at The Salvation Army

Giving blood (request from a member) for the first time.

Quick photo shoot on the roof of the hospital after visiting a poor, ailed, soul.

My super cute companion who is ALWAYS looking for ways to serve me daily. Looooove her.

Hello Logansport, Goodbye Hair *sobs*

My baby flew the coop last week!

And so did I.

So after saying goodbye to Sis Pete

and having a mini fam reunion (pretty positive we have the biggest posterity in the mish)...

Great-Grandma, Grandma, Mom, Baby, Grand-Baby

I set out for

L O G A N S P O R T .

All I have to say is:

Shout out to the homies that have ever served in Powell.

I feel ya.

Bless ya.

This place is the exact opposite of my last area, goodbyyyeeee civilization!

Hello, corn.

Fields and fields of corn.

The branch has 65 members (I counted).

The closest missionaries to us live 15 miles away...

And they're not even in our mission.

Because Logansport is so teeny, we cover a lot of area.

Why?

Because we have to leave our city to actually find humans.

We have the biggest area in the mission and we cover FIVE COUNTIES.

F I V E.

I cannot begin to express to you how grateful I am that I love my companion.

Sister Harris, you da one.

My first week started off pretty rocky:

My very first day in Logansport we went over to a member's house to have dinner and they have a nephew who is a hairdresser and he gave Sister Harris a trim and it looked really nice...

For those of you that are unaware, I made the mistake of cutting off all of my hair not too long before I left on my mission and have been trying to grow it out ever since.

But.

It really needed a trim so I'm all like,"Heck yeah. Free haircut! Let's do it!" 

So I told dear, Hairdressing Nephew Man that I just wanted a TRIM.

TEE ARE EYE EM. That spells trim. As in... t r i m.

He took it upon himself to basically roar up the weed whacker and go nutz.

I mean... by all means. 

It's not like it's YOUR hair dear, "Hairdressing" Nephew Man.

So long story short (and I mean SHORT), my hair is no longer.

To make the day that much better, later that night when we went home to our sad (elders had it before us. gross) apartment, I sat down in this chair to you know, weep and whatnot...

And it completely flipped over.

We need a new chair.

All in all, the work here is aaaaamazing and the gospel is still true and brings true happiness aaaaaaaaand there are about a billion ice cream places in this cute, little town.

So.

I'm good. 

Sincerely, Sister Soloa'i 

I L.O.V.E Indy

We got the call.

We're both being transferred out of Indy.

AND BEING REPLACED BY ELDERS. 

Ew.

Buuuuuut.

The Lord is in control of His work and I know He has amazing plans for my dear, White River. 

F A I T H, amirite??

I won't ever be able to thank my Heavenly Father enough for sending me here and the 

{ B E A U T I F U L }

six months I was able to spend laughing (constantly), singing, hair-flipping, raging, praying (hard), dancing (shhh! don't tell), fasting, dying, thriving, fearing, sweeeaaating (this humidity ohmygosh), sobbing (tears. so many tears), aaaaaand L O V I N G (bundles and bundles and bundles...) here. 

This place is NUTZ.

This place is blessed. 

This place has wonderful, mental, pretty people: 

My veerrryyy best friend forever and ever, Sister Leonard

My family away from my family, The Lewis Clan

My best homegirl, Shannon

My Mom of White River, Sister Burk<3

The two I poured my heart and soul into, my most loving cheerleaders: Donna and Terica

My best homie and her shouldn't-be-allowed-to-be-this-cute munchkins

The family that always made me laugh: The Delps 

 The sassiest, Nancy

 LOOOOOOORIIIII, my main gurl.

Grandma, Mom, Baby, Grandbaby

My People: Dawn and Tim

And of course, muh Baby. I love ya.

Peace out, White Rivaaaaaaaa

Sincerely, Sister Soloa'i

*snap snap snap*

Elder and Sister Winings aka my BFFs. In case you couldn't tell, they make me laugh endlessly. Buuuuut all good things must come to an end (unless it's the gospel. that's forever, people.) and they are now hooooome.

 I LOVE the members in my ward. This is Nina. I go to her when I miss human affection.

Just a warning: If you don't answer your (very reflective) door, I WILL take selfies in it.

 I always seem to find myself ON of my desk instead of AT it. Sis Pete took a shot of it one day. *snaps* well done, Sis Pete. Very candid.

 Remember how I said people give us stuff? That includes chocolate. Pounds and pounds of it. It's been a good week. 

Meet Wale! Sister Alexander and I began teaching him in May (remember the investigator whose phone went off in Sacrament Meeting? lol), but eventually we had to gift him over to the YSA missionaries since that is the ward he would attend. Well. WALE WAS BAPTIZED THIS WEEK!!! It was so wonderful. I love him dearly. He overcame A LOT of tribulation to make that covenant with God and he is a massive example to me of enduring faith.

Isn't Sis Pete the cutest?? Sorry, I don't show her face as much as I should. It's a good one.

Our current District. Plus, the Zone Leaders. Don't ask about the socks. They weren't my idea.

Was gifted some hiiiiiigh quality pants. I think they fit juuuuuuuust right. 

Sincerely, Sister Soloai

Courage to Have Faith

I feel like Satan was tempting everyone to anti us this week or maybe God was just trying to make us stronger, I don't know. Either way, it was a REALLY trying week. 

But.

I also grew a LOT.

 

Last Friday, there we were, sitting in the living room of a potential investigator and they and their friend are just going OFF about how religion isn't even a thing, we shouldn't believe in things we can't see, trying to tell US what WE believe when they didn't even know what the name of our church was until we told them, and questioning us about the most ridiculous stuff like how if we truly knew our church was correct, we should know how many books in the Book of Mormon there were without looking (15. thank you primary). 

Basically they were just shaming everything we hold dearest to us and being insane. 

Normally, in these situations I try to be very respectful and kind and whatnot.

But.

In this case, I felt something kind of snap that hot, Friday afternoon in that wacko's home. 

Now, these people were loud, and their speech was never-ending so I just start waving my hands around and going, "Hey! Hellooooooo!" and they're all like *talky talky talky louder louder louder* and I'm all like, "Actually, no. I'm going to stop you right there." 

And, surprisingly, they did. 

I was then able to bear my testimony about something really wonderful: 

F A I T H  I N  C H R I S T 

Did it matter to them?

Probs not.

Did they even hear a word I said?

Probs not.

But that measly testimony, in the middle of a contentious environment, by a little girl who still has no idea what the HECK she's doing, spoken with embarrassing, frustrated tears, meant everything to me.

People, I don't have a perfect testimony. 

I don't have proof and facts to back up every answer I feel to be right when it comes to the church.

I have things I question myself!

But let me share with you one of my all time FAVORITE scriptures: 

"And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." - 1 Nephi 11:17 

I don't know everything. 

And honestly, I don't even "know" that this church is true.

But, for the love, I have absolute, 100%, crazy, uber, F A I T H that it is! 

I have faith that Heavenly Father truly does love His children and that he doesn't want us to fail or be led astray. 

I have faith that He provided a Savior who loves and knows us in a way we will never understand. 

I have faith that He didn't send us to Earth to just potter around and kinda, sorta, maybe, be a good person and perhaps get back to Him someday. 

HECK NO.

He gave us His gospel! He laid out His plan for us! Because He WANTS us home and He WANTS us to be happy and have joy in this life and in the next and so, of course, He provided us a way to achieve that! 

I have faith that that SAME EXACT gospel Christ had on the Earth is restored. 

I have faith that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is wonderfully true. 

"And now I said concerning faith -- faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true." - Alma 32:21

Just because we may not KNOW, doesn't make it any less true. 

Sincerely, Sister Soloa'i 

I Believe in Miiiiraaaacles!

I don't know where that little jingle came from, but I remember Ashton always going around the house (like his usual freakiness) and singing it.

But truly, I believe.

I really do.

Remember last week's rant?

(sorry about that)

Well those investigators came back to church this week!!!!! 

I. KNOW.

And guess what??

We talked about temples.

Again.

Aaaaand the Sunday School lesson was supposed to be on Christ and we droned on about King David and his concubines for a solid 10 minutes until our homie, Elder Udy, raised his hand and went off on baptism and Jesus and every time the subject started straying again...

*hand raise* = one of the missionaries.

Currently l o v e  the missionaries that I serve with. 

Anyway, after all this craziness, our investigator still says after church, "This is the only church I've found that satisfies me." 

YAAAAAAAYYYY.

It just goes to show this is GOD'S work, and not ours. 

Another miracle that happened:

We have a daughter and a mother who have been on date to be baptized for AWHILE now and we've just been getting really discouraged and frustrated with their use of agency lately. 

Agency... is... the worst.

But you know, I'm still all for it and everything.

Anyway.

We know that making these covenants with our Heavenly Father will bless their lives ENORMOUSLY and it's really frustrating to see someone you love be sooooo close, but so far.

Well anyway.

The daughter hasn't been to church for over 2 weeks and so we technically had to take her off date and were pretty sad about it and then this past week she went out of town so we thought, "Well there goes trying to get her at church this week!" but we decided we would look up a church in the area she was visiting and text her the address anyway, thinking it was a long shot...

BUT THEN.

She texted us yesterday afternoon and said SHE HAD GONE TO CHURCH BY HERSELF IN A COMPLETELY UNFAMILIAR WARD AND LOOOOOOVED IT. 

ALL. THREE. HOURS. 

Insane. 

God is sooooooo good, people. 

Also, we have been teaching these two little twin girls Ashley and Zoey for a couple of months now and this past week they got baptized! 

They are the sweetest and the CUTEST.

I just love those two and every time they see us they'll come running with lots of hugs. 

Zoey always whispers to me: "You're my favorite sister."

Ugh.

It melts me. 

Life is good. The work is better!

Sincerely, Sister Soloa'i 

Our lovely STLs

The district... and Sister Burkhart.

The WINNINGS. adore them. They're leaving in TWO weeks to go home. tears. so many tears.

The Twins' baptism!

God Bless America

Soooooo sorry for the lack of activity lately.

Sadly, this post is probs going to be mega boring because not much has been going on, but at the same time a ton of stuff has been going on.

Life is insane.

Can I make a suggestion to all those out there preparing for talks in sacrament meeting?

Please, for the love, PLEASE talk about Jesus. 

Yesterday, in sacrament meeting the topic was "Patriotism."

PATRIOTISM. 

So I'm thinking, "Okay. This could be good. Talk about the freedoms we enjoy in this land what a blessing from GOD." 

OH, no.

One kid gets up and starts talking about how America is the greatest and no other countries compare to it.

Over the pulpit.

Did I mention our two investigators came?

Did I mention it was there first time at church??

Did I mention they are from I N D I A ? ? ?

Coming from a family that has been blessed to know several different cultures, I was born and raised with the belief that no one is greater than another.

I mean, America rocks for sure.

God bless America.

But seriously though, people, we're all God's children here and his gospel is centered on LOVE and CHRIST.

Let's keep it centered there.

The day just gets better and better when we head to class and what are we discussing today?

Oh.

Temples.

Good.

Not, "I love to see the temple" kind of temple talk but, deep doctrine, "I swear if you bring up Kolob, I'll murder you." kind of temple talk. 

Being a missionary is stressful. 

The church is true.

The church is perfect.

The people aren't.

But that's okay.

Because you know what?

It's still the Lord's work and He's the head of it.

Also, miracles happen because even though it was probably THE WORST Sunday to take new investigators to, they still said they had a nice time and felt good aka THE SPIRIT (aaaaaaaaahhh!!) there.

God bless Hoosiers.

Sincerely, Sister Soloa'i

Not even the gnomes answered their doors that day

Shout out to my windy, underpopulated, dry aired (miss you), mountain-blessed Wyoming. You da one. 

You know you're in the hood when...