April 25, 2016

So THIS past Saturday was my two month mark for being set apart, for real tho...again, time is so messed up on a mission.This Wednesday will be my two month of entering the MTC.

We had some really amazing experiences this week. We had the baptism of Terri Matthews. She has been the most golden investigator. The Lord prepared her so much. She was ready to go by the first time I met her. She later confessed to us that baptism is something that had been on her mind, weighing heavily, before she met us, but she didn't know how to be baptized. She was so humble--willing to learn--and so receptive. Because she has been so sick she could literally meet any time under the sun so it made it easy for us to get members to appointments with her. (**If you didn't know, missionaries need to have a member present at every planned appointment, so if you haven't already, ask them when you can come with them!**Because it stinks canceling an appointment because a Church member canceled.) All we had to do was show up and teach the lessons to her and answer her questions. She was so ready. Wouldn't it be great to say that because of my own skills she was brought into the fold, but I know it was the Lord and he just used me. I think with any investigators we find such success with it will be the same, throughout my mission. I'm thankful He did, and I don't know why He's chosen to bless me so much, but He has.

We also had a cool experience tracting. We ask everyone we meet, "How has faith in Jesus Christ impacted your life?" (Because everyone in Indy has a faith in Christ, duh.) We get some cool answers. But by far one of the coolest I have heard so far came from Aiden. He is 13. He has been to any church about 4 times in his life, all recently. He gave one of the most powerful expressions of faith with his answers I've heard. He had never heard of the word apostle, of the word new testament, but he wants to follow Christ. We came back to visit him and teach the REstoration of the Church, and he said he had a dream. A dream in which he was in heaven helping God teach people, and that Jesus was teaching his family. He said that he was helping God direct people in entering the pearly gates, and telling them which "cities" to go to. We have never even BROUGHT UP the Plan of Salvation. Pretty incredible. He said he knows God will help Him in the afterlife, and we told Him God wants to help him here too.

I know God will help you if you seek Him.

And I love you, but Jesus Loves You Best, Sister Pugmire

 We felt so joyful after Terri's baptism that we had to blow some dandelions because see Terri get baptized was a wish come true!

           A healthy meal after a . lonnngggg day!

Happy P-day! filling in an adult coloring book for Patricia. Not bad for doing it while driving.

April 18, 2016

Hey Loved Ones,

As of yesterday, I have been a missionary for two months!

This week my companion and I had the goal of being very diligent about our tracting. Mission President Cleveland requires that we do 12 hours every week. Which is completely turned on its head from what I expected, because I heard it was least effective. But you'd be so surprised that most of the ward members are converts, and most of said converts were tracted into by missionaries.

We started tracting on Tuesday, and felt very impressed to go down a certain street. Not a ton of luck. Then we ran into, the last house on the block, a VERY Irish Catholic man, Mr. O'Mara, who has the IRA's flag flying on his flagpole and only reads the Saint Ignatius Bible. For some reason, even though I knew the Irish hate the English, and he just got finished telling me about how the IRA is totally justified in bombing people because of what the English did to them, I felt impressed to talk about my family history from England. He said he had visited the land of my ancestors, "Pugh's Mire" and told me that "pugh" in Gaelic means "to kiss." Then we felt impressed to give him a Book of Mormon, which he said he would read the whole thing! He then gave us a prayer card for the Patron Saint of purgatory, and told us to read it if we ever wanted to release souls from purgatory, and if I did so those souls in purgatory would do the same thing for me. That explains a lot, because at least three Catholics have given me some relic for the Patron Saint of Purgatory since I've been here. Well, better than Hell.

Later we also tracted into a lady who made it very clear that she was not interested, EXCEPT for learning about the pioneers. She said she reads nonfiuc about the Mormon Pioneers specifically and why they did what they did. It was so cool to share with her the stories of my ancestors, and the knowledge that they did it because they knew it was true and wanted to give me a better life. We are coming back and giving her a copy of 17 Miracles and Legacy to borrow. She gave us some clementines and water bottles for the road! Who knew family history would come in handy tracting?

We are really focusing on that this week before Terri gets baptized. She has been saying that her parents were "already baptized," and we knew that she didn't have a testimony about the Restored Gospel or the Priesthood power, so we knew we needed to work on it. But when we gave a lesson on Family History, she expressed interest in taking their names to the temple the week after she gets baptized! Her testimony is growing so fast!

Love you all, pray for you, and hope you see the hand of the Lord in your life!

<3 Sister "Pugh's Mire"

PS............Any relatives, if you have family history stories, I'd love to read them!

April 11, 2016

Hey Loved Ones,

So this is actually week 7 for me, not last week. Time is so hard to keep track of.

So this is going to be my lamest email yet, but here is a picture.

All I have to say is people watch you being awesome and it so helps with missionary work. There are people out there who need to hear and see your testimonies.

And the most powerful testimony comes when you don't know, but you still do it anyway. That's how my investigators have been this week. They don't know why they need to keep the lord's commands, but they do it anyway, even those who have only come in contact with the Church recently. That to me is SO powerful.

Also read the Ensign! <3 Sister Pugmire

Week 7-General Conference Week

Hey Loved Ones,

This week has been a great one in preparation for General Conference. It was a great way to spread the Gospel as we told our investigators, potential investigators, former investigators, recent converts, active members, returning less active members, less active members, and friends all about the Prophet speaking for God this week! In short, everyone we could. It was so amazing to hear the excitement in someone's voice when they heard the leader of our church was speaking to the whole world, and they would definitely tune in!

There's something about General Conference...the harmony of the topics the speakers gave, the way they just said the exact words that were answers to things I had been praying about before, and how it really does impact the lives of millions and millions of people worldwide, and truly the whole world. I hope if you didn't get to watch it live, you will.

One of the themes that stood out to me was our identity, and what defines a person. That no one should ever be defined by the worst thing that they have ever done, that we are children of a King and can be like Him, and that once we understand that and that he loves us even more than an earthly father ever could, it changes us and our actions.

After Sunday morning session we went to visit a very special investigator. Before I was a missionary, I swore I would never waste time with an investigator who was not making progress, as I know how many people there are the Lord has prepared. But my mind changed when I heard about "Patty". She has been on the list of "New" investigators for almost a year, mostly because she has not progressed in that year. But we go visit her once a week. From the moment that I heard about her, Sister Gregerson and I took a keen interest in her. Imagine Ann of Green Gables in all her sassiness, double it, and imagine her trapped in a old lady's body, and then add in a drinking habit, a smoking habit, and lots of cussing. That is "Patty". She calls everyone a hussie, her family members snakes, and she'll excuse herself for saying "pissed" but never for actual swearwords. It is the funniest thing. I love her to death. She has what we call an abrasive personality, but that really doesn't deter missionaries. We went over there to remind her how much God loves her, ask her if she remembers that she is the daughter of a King, and to tell her about Conference. When we got there she said she had been praying we would come by today. She also said last week when we prayed her niece would come by, she did! She said she had been reading the Book of Mormon, and would watch General Conference. And then we felt the prompting from the Holy Ghost to ask her if she wanted to be Baptized!!! She said yes, and picked the day of May 14th!!! She says she wants to quit smoking, give up coffee and alcohol, and come to church and meet the Bishop! It's amazing what the Love of God can do. As we left she gave us her catholic rosary pendants, and a statue of a wizard. So now we have Merlin in our front room and the Patron Saint of Lost Causes around my neck. 

I love ya all and pray for you!

Remember that the Best Blessings from Conference come AFTER, Remember who you are, and Remember the Alamo.

Sister Pugmire

Being a missionary is great!

Hey Loved Ones,

Being a missionary is great. It's no joke that spreading the Doctrine of Christ and seeing other people take it to heart is one of the best joys in life.

My companion Sister Gregerson is so great. We have a ton of fun together. Our only problem is we stay up too late just talking! She has such a genuine interest in people and is always thinking and talking about them. And it shows. I was in the bathroom one time and she was sitting waiting outside. A man stopped dead in his tracks and looked at her. "You...you are a child of Christ?!" he exclaimed. "You're glowing!" and then he walked away. We'd never seen him in our life.

It's true though. Here's a cool story. Sister Ketchum (who Mom got the pic from this week) had us over to make Easter cookies for investigators. She has a daughter serving in Federal Way, who in her own right is a missionary legend. Her name is Maggie. She has a very interesting family she had been working with. It was a family from Iran. They were devout Muslims. Then one day, out of the blue, a coworker started bearing testimony of Christ, but never spoke of it again. They became curious, went to a Christian church, and became baptized. They ended up having to leave Iran within months because of persecution and threats on their life. They moved to Turkey, where the preacher at their Christian church warned them vehemently about the dangerous "Mormons." Again curious, they researched all they could online. They heard that the faces of these "Mormons shine in the dark". Because of persecution and looming danger of Isis attacks in Turkey, they moved eight months later to Washington. Then, very soon after, they saw at a food bank, one of the helpers had one these faces that were shining. Literally shining, so that they could see. They told their youngest son, the only one to speak any English, to go ask him if he was Mormon. He was. He was an Elder, who referred them to Sister Maggie Ketchum. The family wanted to go to the church building first. All through the discussion, the youngest son Qian had to translate. They took them on a tour of the church. When they got to the painting of Christ visiting America, the wife stopped. She told her son to tell the missionaries that there was an energy coming from the painting. They told her it was the Spirit. She asked them what the Spirit is. They told her it was God speaking to her, and asked her what He was saying. She said that God was telling her that he loved her, and what they learned was true. They were baptized last week, the whole family.

We invited two of our investigators to a baptism this week. One was Benjamin. The baptism started really late and he had to go to work before it would even be over. It takes him 15 minutes to get to work from the church, and the miracle was that even though it started late he had exactly enough time to watch the full ordinance, and then he had to step out the door. The other investigator was Terrie Matthews with her 6-year old daughter Mikayla. Mikayla is very funny, very opinionated, and very sassy! She is adorable! The boy being baptized was a ten year old boy named David Percifield, and in typical ten year old boy fashion was silly with how excited he was. As he was coming into the font he was yelling (laughing) "No! No! I don't want to get in that water!" because it was a bit cold. Then Mikalya asked (loudly,) "Why doesn't he wanna get in the water? Is he NAKED?!" We all Lost It. We were all laughing, and I was about in tears. But it was so funny, no one could help it. Then once he was baptized, something got stuck under water and Elder Hoffman had to dive to get it. It was a bit silly. Mikayla was loudly exclaiming through all this she would never be baptized. I worried the Spirit may have gone away. But once Terrie got back to the Relief Society room, she whispered to me, "Now I know I really want to do this." I was in such shock I asked her to repeat it. "Yes," she said, "I know I really want to do this now." It testified to me how strong the Spirit is during these sacred ordinances, regardless of anything else. (;

We talked about how it would be a good example for Mikayla. Sister Gregerson brought them a children's Book of Mormon and asked them to read a chapter every night, and then have Terrie read the full chapter in her Book of Mormon. We felt impressed to promise her that some of the fondest memories she could make with Mikayla would be reading her the Book of Mormon and watching her understand it.

On Sunday they came to Easter service. After church, Terrie told us they were reading the Book of Mormon. She said that they had read a chapter every night, and last night one extra because Mikayla wouldn't let her stop! She said she just eats it up!!! Terrie said that she was having trouble reading the smaller print in the Book of Mormon because of her MS makes her have tremors. It was so cool to see her sincere desire to teach her daughter, and we got her a large print Book of Mormon.

There are so many miracles out there, I wasn't even able to share the half of them. Until next week, I love you all and pray for you.

Read to your kiddoes the Book of Mormon, pray even when you feel grumpy, and feed the missionaries, because spiritual hunger takes its toll in the temporal (;