Happy Halloween

Letter from October 31, 2016

Hey guess what. ITS HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!

Super Sisters – to the rescue!

Not much to tell for this week! Just more of the same old stuff.  Good stuff though.  Sister Ray and I finished out the last week of the transfer strong and are ready to work hard another six weeks together.  We just started a 40 day fast in the 2nd ward.  Different families sign up for different days to fast for missionary work!  It is going to start November first and we are excited to see what it will bring!!   Sometimes we just look around at the scene we are sitting in and laugh too.  Like last night at the Heckert’s.  While Joseph sat answering a question he had one hand over his little brother’s mouth who was also trying to talk while he laid across him backwards.  Solomon sat behind him picking his nose, analyzing the ‘product’, and then proceeding to eat it.  And Mathew was sprawled underneath his feet slowly rolling back and forth, blinking like he was having a seizure.  Haha what a family.  They remind me of FHE back home, JK.  

The district

This week during sacrament meeting Jordan took the bread and the water (BIG SUCESS) and then proceeded to tell us that she would continue to take the sacrament AND get baptized because she wanted as many blessings as she could get from Heavenly Father.   We were so excited!! She and Sierra are going to be baptized on the same day but they have to talk to some family before setting the official date!  Proud of these girls and what they are doing. Jordan also informed us that she was able to overcome the dog situation by giving her dog the missionary lessons so that he too can learn to be a good Christian. She’s so funny!

 Randal we love you. Randal we do. When we’re apart our hearts beat for yooouuuuu. Ahhhh we freaking love Randal and how much he freaking loves Jesus!  We had a crazy lesson with him!  We were teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and as we started discussing baptism Randal totally opened up to us about the hard life he has had.  He told he has a hard time forgiving himself because he feels like his two kids will never know why he had to leave them.  I can’t begin to say how thankful I am for members that are so willing to help us missionaries.  Brother Rawlings swooped into the conversation, with tear-filled eyes, and told this heartbreaking story about the day his dad left him but as he got older he understood why and was able to build a relationship with him.  And we all testified that God and the Savior would be able to mend those broken relationships and heal his family. Randal also wants to get baptized so he can have the Holy Ghost to help him do these things.  Oh and also he said he was gonna get us some dope fire department shirts- please  follow through on that dear Randal!

 Last one is Branden.  He is so dope.  Guess what he told us?!   BRANDEN IS GOING TO SERVE A MISSION!  He is going to be talking with the bishop this week about it.  I guess those missionary chapters in Alma really moved him to action.  He feels it’s what he needs to do with his life.  Six weeks ago this kid wasn’t even active- how cool is that?!  Wanna know why he is active???  HE READ THE BOOK OF MORMON.  This guy is living proof that the Book of Mormon changes hearts.  The first time we met with him he didn’t know what he was going to do with his life, but he accepted the invitation to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it.  And gradually, week by week, he began to feel the Holy Ghost work within him.  He truly feasted upon the words of Christ and he has changed so much, so quickly.  His family is very excited to see this change and so are we,  Sister Ray and I.   He is going to be such a good missionary!

Amongst some of the crude humor and ill-placed comments people sometimes honor us with this week,  I did manage to have a few spiritual thoughts.  A very simple one too. I LOVE JESUS.  My testimony of my Savior grows SO much every day.  I honestly can’t even put into words how I feel about my Savior.  Definitely grateful. The more I learn about Him, the more I want to be like Him and follow Him.  The spirit converts me more and more every day.  I know that the spirit has testified to me that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that He truly is the one who will redeem us from our sins.  I know that by following His example and entering into the waters of baptism we just begin to accept Him.  We begin to follow Him through the gate and down the path to eternal life.  I have begun to realize how important it is to love Him and our Father in Heaven above everything else.  They loved us first.   Hope you are all having wonderful days this week!

Peace out Homies, Sis Packer

Happy Halloween

Today Has Been a Hard Week!

Letter from October 24th, 2016

Dear family and friends,

Just so you know, the title of this email doesn’t make sense, but hopefully conveys my feelings. Ahhhhhhhrg!  I feel like I can summarize this week in two sentences: We dropped people, cars are stupid and so are people and clothing racks stink.  But Costco rocks and I have a lot of popcorn.  So first off, we had to drop our investigator Jim this week.  And it made me SO sad.  I have been teaching him since I got to Sierra Vista.  I have seen him progress and learn to recognize the spirit as he reads the Book of Mormon. However, he informed us that despite these things he just cannot logically get over his hang ups on Joseph Smith and become a member of the church.  I love Jim and his honesty.  He really sincerely wants to find truth but I believe he is scared to commit. Scared to take a leap of faith.  He did say he would continue to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it.  Maybe now just isn’t his time.  But I do firmly believe that if he really does read it like he said he would he will one day know that this is Christ’s kingdom on the earth, and he will find his place in it.   And then on the same day we had to drop Elizabeth. 

Now I will tell you why cars are stupid.  They are stupid because they are so easy to break!  Yes dad, I did it again.  So our beautiful Captain Teancum has a small bean shaped dent in the front fender.  Sometimes when you decide to do service at an alpaca ranch you have to go down a hill of dirt and gravel to park.  Sometimes it’s steeper and slicker than you expected.  This sometimes results with you accidentally bumping into the car you are trying to park next to. 😬 Thankfully, the other car barely had a scratch and Lou Ann could have cared less.  And thankfully Elder Andersen is a very forgiving vehicle coordinator who helped me fill out an incident report. Ha. Oh the joys of life. 😑  Oh yes and our clothing rack (because our apartment is so small we don’t have a closet, just a rack) broke and our clothes had to chill on the kitchen table for half the week.  But what a blessing it is to have a kitchen table right?!  Also at one of our dinner appointments this week, Kennely Cooper told us that she and two friends were walking home and had a ‘clown experience’.  You know the week is going downhill fast when someone gets chased by a clown here in freaking Sierra Vista. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!  I’m never leaving the apartment again. 😨😨😨😨😨 😂  What a week guys, what a week.   The good news is that we were in Tucson on Friday and Sister Ray has a Costco card.  We went to the magical land of Costco. It was like stepping through the wardrobe to Narnia, but better because there were free samples and giant bags of popcorn.  Balance restored!!!

We met with Sierra and Jordan this week twice.  They are doing awesome.  Sierra accepted the invitation to be baptized- YAAAAYYYYYY- on November 26th. So excited for her. Jordan said this to the invite- “No thanks. I’m going to have to decline that offer.  I have to prepare for my dogs birthday and I don’t think I’ll have time to prepare for a baptism too.” Lol Jordan, maybe we can work something out. The dogs birthday was yesterday so we will try again next week. We have had some interesting moments with these two girls! They are definitely a handful at times, but it is cool to see how they are coming to enjoy the gospel and enjoy attending church.  Jordan got to be a part of the primary program this Sunday!  The women in the ward are taking Darla under their wing.  Hereford ward is still the bomb.  

The last thought I want to leave you with is this scripture- Mathew 7:21  

21 ¶Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

I came across this during personal study and I have kind of fallen in love with it this week. One of the ideas Satan tries to plant in our brains is that to hear the word is enough or that to declare our belief is enough.  This clearly states that it is not enough.  Mack Lawerence of the seventy said- “Please note that it is insufficient to just hear the word of God in gatherings such as this conference. In order to have God’s word impact our lives–to receive the promised blessings–we must follow it.”  Sierra is willing to follow and do.  She is such a great example of childlike humility and submission.  She is ready to do whatever He asks.  I know that it is hard to do his will.  I often want to question His will.  But how comforting is it to know that he that doeth His will, will return to Him?  I am grateful that the Lord helps us to do His will. He does want us to learn and grow which means we will be subject to some hard times but He stays with us the whole time.  I love my Savior and my Heavenly Father.  I love having Sister Ray as a companion and love, love, love this area.

Love you guys, Sister Packer

Our favorite signs so far… “Signs are Stupid!”  hahaha

This guy named Troy who had the coolest cars.  He is a hot rodder.  He taught us a bit about the car world.

We spent today in Bisbee for pday.  It’s an old high hippie mining town.

Every Morning and Every Night

Letter from October 14, 2016

Hey family!

If it is possible for sacrament meeting to be lit- then I would say that was the status of Hereford ward this week.  It was poppin!  The Hammond’s ALL came to church.  When the sacrament began, Jordan (age 10) leans over and says to me, “I don’t want to take that.  I’m not really hungry or thirsty right now.” Hahaha, but she also asked her mom if they could come every week.  Yes Jordan yes you can!  Also, Branden came!  Finally!!!!  Brother Rawlings told us that he had spoken with another one of our investigators, Randal,  and he was supposed to come and so we were watching the doors so closely waiting for our last compadre to show up – but not before sacrament meeting started.  We both sat there in sacrament and prayed that he would come.  And guess what?  Nothin. THEN. On the way out of gospel principles, we went walking past the foyer and BAM! There’s RANDAL. (Hallelujah chorus plays) it was awesome!  So big party in the Hereford ward with everyone there.  

Some cool experiences that we had this week:  We had two lessons with Sierra and Jordan Hammond.  All I can say is God has been preparing them and preparing us for them!  Wow!  At the beginning of the second lesson we were getting ready to read some of the Book of Mormon together.  Sierra, who is thirteen, showed us this bookmark she had made for hers.  On one side it said- “This Book of Mormon belongs to Sierra Hammond”. On the other side it said- “Jesus Christ is the Savior. I have felt the Holy Ghost and I know it is real and true.” AHHHHH. We felt so much happiness. She was so ready and open to feel the Holy Ghost and let God’s love into her life.  And they LOVE it. The spirit has been so strong in each lesson.  I know it’s because these girls are inviting it in.  They aren’t just curious, they really sincerely want to feel God’s love.

Randal had a lesson with us on Sunday.  We haven’t seen him in two or three weeks.  He even acknowledged how hard Satan has been working on him but because of some awesome fellowshipping going on he felt like he could come to church.  Thank you Brother Rawlings!  Teaching him the first lesson was crazy.  He still has such a strong testimony of the Savior and he said he will never lose hope because he knows his Savior.  This lesson was also very special to us because it helped us reach a goal we had set for the week. We wanted to be able to teach a certain number of lessons and were one short.  We prayed and had been thinking up plans to help us achieve our goal while at church and then Randal showed up and we asked him and it just worked our perfectly.  Thank you Heavenly Father.

Okay – okay, this is probably the best one.  We’ve been doing new member lessons with Joseph Heckert and doing family home evening’s with the whole family.  So there are 11 kids in this family.  Sister Ray was teaching them about enduring to the end and she asked what they could do every morning and night. Their responses? Solomon- “EAT BREAKFAST!”  Sebastian- “GO POOP!” Kid’s responses are golden!  Now you too know what you can do morning and night.  

Other happenings of the week:  We became bff’s with some alpacas.  We spent one day in Wilcox after a meeting up there and were stranded there with the Passey’s and the AP’s.  We also got free matching shirts.  We became professional cement pourers and fence fixers.  We prayed every night not to be attacked by clowns.  We discovered the beauty of ghost Reese’s peanut butter cups. It was a solid effective week.

 In my personal reading, I finished the Book of Mormon this week.  It is the best book I have ever read.  I know it’s true.  I know that it was meant for these days and that I was meant to read those words.  I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that he was able to translate this book for us through God’s power.  I am so grateful for him and his life.  I love seeing how the Book of Mormon strengthens me daily but even more, how it strengthens the people here.  Seeing the Hammond’s and Branden read this week and hearing their experiences that they are having with this book strengthens my testimony so much and makes me feel such joy.  It was meant for them!   To be able to read these words and know that this gospel is true.  And we can all do that!  We can all read and pray every morning and night so that we can always KNOW it’s true.   Ready, Set, Go do it!

Love, Sister Packer

Repentance and Investigator-itos

Letter from October 10, 2016

Hi Fam,

Tres investigatoritos.  That’s my spanish for three investigators.  NEW INVESTIGATORS! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Yesssss.  So we met with the Hammond family on Tuesday night. Brother Hammond is a member but wife and two girls are not. So they feel like it would be a good idea for the girls to know where he came from (UTAH) and what his religion was/is. His wife Darla told us she had been to some of our services in the past and she didn’t like them because the songs were depressing.  I think she is used to “praise Jesus hallelujah” music and we on the reverent side of things.  Maybe we can resolve that concern, haha.  Then the other night we met with… KEITH and Keith’s daughter Camille.  Keith is literally the funniest guy ever and a true homie.  One day he is going to make me my dream car, we have already discussed it.  He is divorced and raised his four kids by himself.  Anyway, we had an awesome talk about family and the importance of gospel principles within the family with them. And then we also talked about God and prayer.  Camille has never said a prayer before.  Ever.  She’s not even sure somebody is up there.  We taught her how to pray and while she wouldn’t pray right there with us, she said she was going to this week. Very cool. And so that is how we have three new investigators and it is CRAZY!  We are pretty stoked about it.

Ok so from the pictures I might look like I got a bit abused,  we did service and were cutting and moving wire fence and I have scratches all up my arms and hands…  To go along with the beautiful scratches I have a wonderful sunburn line.  I had a head band on my head too so I have a line across my forehead.  Awesome!  Somehow we have survived the week.  I don’t know if I have talked about the Perkin’s before or not.  But they are a cool couple we are teaching the temple prep lessons too.  Brother Perkins is deaf because of a tumor in his brain and Sister Perkins used to be deaf but she got a cochlear implant so she can hear most now.  It’s been pretty fun to teach them.  We use a white board, a flip book and our iPads.  And we now have an elder in the area who just came from the ASL branch in Tucson so he has started coming to help us too and it’s been a lot of fun to see Bother Perkins learn sign language!  He gets so excited to learn a new way to communicate.  

So Wednesday, we had zone meeting.  And guess what those zone leaders made me do? A training. Ahhhhhh.  I had to give a training on how to teach repentance.  Maybe they felt like I needed to repent so they had me teach it, Jk.  First time doing one by myself and I was so nervous.  But I didn’t pass out or teach false doctrine (as far as I know).  I’m actually glad for the opportunity because I really got to study repentance, how it ties in perfectly with the atonement and how it helps convert people.  Some of the cool things I found interesting in my studies was that we are looking for a change of heart before the Lord.  We can change our behavior but our hearts cannot be changed without the atonement.  There is this quote from Elder Oaks- “We must also be changed from a morally weak person who has sinned into a strong person with the strength to resist sin and the spiritual stature to dwell in the presence of God.”  Repentance is the change necessary to become more like our Heavenly Father and leads us to purification and sanctification.  My favorite scripture I found was Helaman 12:24 and it talks about how repentance can restore us to grace.  And as we continually follow a pattern of daily repentance we become stronger and stronger which brings us a true change of heart and true repentance.  Repentance has come to mean a lot to me.  But more because of my Savior and what He did for me.  He saves me from earthly sorrow.  From feeling like I have literally no hope and should just give up.  When we feel that way, like we just can’t keep going, we can remember that he kept going.  So even though our strength is spent, His isn’t.  Godly sorrow is having hope that even though we have messed up- and will continue to mess up- we can repent and become better.  We can be forgiven, we can do all we can and we can be restored to his grace.  Repentance is a happy and hopeful doctrine, and we have it because of Jesus Christ!  He  brings me so much hope!  Okay I’ll be done with my spill.

Love, Sister Packer

Just Believe

Letter from October 3, 2016

Hi Everyone,

Last Sunday was Fast Sunday and Sister Ray and I fasted for new investigators to teach. Since Monday and Tuesday past, we still hadn’t found anything.  Then Wednesday night the elders called us and gave us the number for a man who was at one point a member of the church but was excommunicated about six years ago. He called them because he wants to come back!  We went out and met with him.  Haha his favorite songs to rock out to are from the EFY 2001 album!   He was definitely an answer to our prayers.  He has a rough road ahead of him but we think he is going to make it and we are excited to start working with him.  And hopefully his wife too!  THEN on Friday at dinner we ate with a member and her parents.  Turns out her parents aren’t members.  We shared the first lesson as our dinner message and invited her mother to read the Book of Mormon.  She said she was still Catholic but that she would read it.  And we were able to set up a time to come back and meet with her!  Thank you Heavenly Father.

Update on Jim.  He came to the Saturday morning session of conference and he really seemed to enjoy it. He left on vacation yesterday and won’t be back until next Sunday.  But he did say he was taking his Book of Mormon with him so he could read and ponder while he sat on the beaches of Mexico. Lol sounds great.

We met with a lot of inactive people this week.  One lives way out in the boonies of Hereford and we seriously debated not driving all the way out there.  But he has been on our list and we decided to just go.  He has a dope goatee, and he has been thinking about coming back to church.  Weird how God puts us right where we need to be, huh?  He invited us to come back next Saturday when his two daughters will be home.  We were really STOKED; still are actually.

Sister Ray and I throughly enjoyed spiritual Christmas this weekend – Conference.  Every session was a good session!  One of my favorite talks was by Elder Russel M. Nelson about Joy.  I couldn’t even take notes because I wouldn’t have been able to keep up with him. Every word was gold.  I loved how he talked about going day by day and finding joy as we endure, rather than just trying to attain joy.  It’s a process.  I also liked how he emphasized that joy isn’t found through the philosophies of men.   Another talked I LOVED was by Elder Bednar.  I liked how he talked about not just knowing Christ but believing in Him, personally.  I think it is easy to talk about him and what he did.  We do it everyday out here but we also have to believe that it all applies to us too.  We can’t just know all the answers, we have to believe that what he promises can work for us individually.  We can know about the atonement and know it is true, but that doesn’t mean we believe it will work for us.  How it works is through us believing it will work and that we will receive his assurances and promises.  Also the talk about putting things into gear was really good.  I felt that there was an overall theme to joy in the doctrine of Christ. Pretty cool cause that is literally our purpose as missionaries. We gotta live it.  They also emphasized that His doctrine is the ONLY WAY back to our Heavenly Father.  And that’s not a scary doctrine but a hopeful one.  In the words of my one and only G-eazy – “my future is bright and my view is clear. Imma do it- imma get it dear, there is no way I could lose this year. Just believe, just believe.” Mmm Hmmm!  Pretty sure he was talking about the doctrine of Christ right…?  It gives us a bright future and a clear view!  And if we just believe in Him we can do it and accomplish all we need to.

Okay so a little bit more about Sister Ray.  She did grow up a member of the church and she is planning on going back to BYU when she goes home.  I appreciate so much about her.  Her sense of humor and her patience in me is awesome.  She is a super chill girl and I really love her!  

Have a good week, Love Sister Packer!

Pday with the District