week 19: somos las SHOVELING hermanas!

hola hola! 

We had a storm hit on Monday and it just kept snowing for a few days, which was great for service opportunities! We were able to shovel a few driveways for NMs, neighbors, and our landlord. We even saw this guy shoveling in shorts and chacos (heck yeah!!!), so we obviously had to help him out haha. It was actually super fun and I'd be down if it snows again to go shovel some more! It helps that my cute Latina comp is obsessed with snow and gets SO excited every time we go outside and the ground is covered. It is the cutest thing! 

Speaking of Hermana Gomez, she is an awesome Spanish teacher and pushes me to go out of my comfort zone and speak up more often. She encourages me to say prayers in lessons, talk on the phone, edit our weekly email, and send the Spanish texts. It has been really good and while I sometimes wish it was Spanish 24/7, I am loving it! We made a goal as our trio to read 5 chapters from El Libro de Mormon everyday for comp study and YALL, it has been such a blessing! Reading the scriptures has helped us to improve our pronunciation of words, better understand what we are reading, and to feel the spirit as a companionship. Blessings all around and I am so so grateful for it! 

We also had zone conference this week that was fire!! It literally answered so many of the thoughts and questions I had and didn't even know I had. President Blickenstaff talked about the spirit vs. the holy ghost and how we can seek to have both in our lives. Our APs gave us finding ideas and encouraged us to really TALK to EVERYONE everywhere we go! And Sister O'Riordan talked about the difference between priesthood, power, keys, and authority and how we can access priesthood power more in our lives and especially now as missionaries(If you want to see the best video of Christ, respond to this and I'll send you and automatic spiritual experience!!!). Then President O'Riordan ended with a powerful message about Christ and how once we find our purpose as missionaries, the time flies and we come to love Christ even more. As he spoke, I was just so happy to be a missionary and it just hit that I am so so so lucky to be a part of the Lord's work. It is so not easy and this transfer has def had it's ups and mega downs, but in the end I am so glad to be where I am right now and want to take advantage of everyday I've got these next 14 months!! Missions are the best! 

some other fun stuff:

-exchanges w the STLs and it was a blast to meet some of the other sisters!

-went to the HS basketball game as sis drapers finding idea...fun but probably won't be happening again lol

-trip to Provo to get the car checked, but the auto shop was closed soooo we just got chick-fil-a and elotes haha

milagro: okay so literally all week we had people cancelling on us left, right, and upside down. It was so frustrating bc right when we were starting to get a busy schedule, things would fall through and we would end up making calls or just sitting around reading area book profiles and doing duolingo for an hour. BUT Saturday night(after weekly planning and setting goals to be better), we got multiple referrals and return appointments set up for next week! And our week is filling up quite nicely with some solid potential. It just really goes to show that when we put in effort and make a plan with the Lord, he blesses us!

This is the Lord's work and He trusts his missionaries! Heavenly Father is working with imperfect people, so do you think He gets frustrated with us once in a while? Of course! Yet, He continues to let us help in His work as we turn to Him and give our best efforts. I am so grateful to be serving a mission right now and to be helping to further the work of the Lord on the Earth today!!

hope everyone is happy, healthy, safe, and warm!! Love you mucho!! 

  hermana dougall

Spanish district!! 

Snow and pants lol

 T-rex tooth from a lady's dino collection (am I in Vernal...?)

Snow!!!

Exchanges w the sistas

Zone conf

The elders kept flexing on their protein powder lol

No lie, we saw a kid wearing a halloween mask and I wish I had taken a pic. This will have to be the next best thing tho.

week 18: somos LAS HERMANAS!!!!!

hola amigos!!! 

yes! you read that right!! This slightly crazy, Spanish obsessed, very much English England missionary is now in a Spanish trio!!!! It has been the greatest blessing for so many reasons and estoy muy muy feliz!!! :))) 

So here is the longer version of the story. My comp and I had a slow and hard first week together and I kinda dumped all my feelings to my President last p day about how little work was going on in the area due to the lack of nonmembers in our stake and my comps lack of motivation. He basically told me to just use the transfer to build up the members and be a friend and example to my comp, but to pray for miracles. So I did just that. And an hour later, we get a call from president saying that a sister in the Spanish area was going home and we would be working with her comp in a trio in both of our areas. In English AND Spanish!!! I was so excited and may or may not have screamed and cried tears of joy haha. On Thursday, Hermana Gomez moved in with us and we have been grinding both areas the last few days. It has been so so good! Sister Draper served in that Spanish ward back in May, so she knows people in that ward and our stake which gives her good leadership. Hermana Gomez is new to the area, but she speaks fluent Español and loves to help us. And I am just excited to be busy, meeting lots of people, and of course speak Spanish!!! It has been so so good!! Also they called us up to give our testimonios at church on Sunday sooo that was a stressful moment lol. 

But Sister Gomez is an angel, you guys!! She is from McAllen Texas and has been serving for about 10 months. She did online MTC, then was an "at home" missionary in her home mission for 3 months before being assigned to Provo. She was originally called to Pachuca, Mexico, so we are both just visa waiting haha. She loves soccer and spicy foods and is just the sweetest little Latina! She is helping me with my Spanish by teaching me weird nursery rhymes and slang terms haha. And she calls me her little buddy. I love her SO much and we never stop laughing!!! ("Tiwi is a snitch! But want to know a secret Hermana dougall?? She doesn't know the speed limit on this road!!")

other highlights:

-we did LOTS of service this week and one was making cookies and chocolate w our senior couple to deliver to some friends in our wards. It was a blast! 

-also lots of heart attacking for valentine's day! 

-we went to dinner Friday to celebrate our trio at La Casita and someone gave us money to cover our dinner, then the owner ended up telling us the meal was on the house. So so sooo kind!!! 

-it rained all week here which is kinda ironic considering it snowed in Oregon?? Driving through puddles and rain made it feel a little like home and a little like England hehe. 

miracle: throwback time!! Back when I got my call to England, I cried for a good week bc I was so heartbroken I wasn't speaking Spanish. After learning about the British culture and hearing about some of my ancestry there, I was a little more excited, but it still hurt my heart bc of all the years of Spanish I had put in and wouldn't be able to use. I prayed a lot that week for comfort and peace in my call and even more leading up to starting the MTC. The day I started at home MTC, I had the strongest prompting that if I put hard work into learning the Spanish on my own, the Lord wouldn't forget me and my desires. The words, "The Lord loves effort," stuck with me so hard and I committed right then and there to study in the MTC and when I could in the mission field. When I got to teach Araceli in Spanish on day 2 of the mission and pray at her baptism, I figured that was the answer to my prayer. It was a tender mercy for sure as I needed to feel that Heavenly Father was aware of me during that time, but this was just another huge miracle. Heavenly Father knows me and loves me!! He knows how much I love Spanish and totally used that as an answer to my prayers as I was struggling. 

I am so so grateful for our loving Heavenly Father!! He knows each one of His children individually and He will not forget you! He answers our prayers and it may not be in our timing, but they will always be answered!! I'm attaching one of my fav new songs about prayer too, so listen up bc it is true!!! 

love you all!! hermana dougall

(except still sister bc my tags still haven't come 2 weeks later haha)

p day soccer w out boy Diesel!

Decorating cookies w the Barkers

First night in the TRIO!

Dinner at La Casita (we were given money AND the owner covered our meal!! #utahmissions)

The Gandolph's dog had 7 puppies!!!

 Heart attacks!!

week 17: we are the SPRINGVILLE sisters

yo yo yo!!! reporting to you live from the other side of the mountains in Springville Utah. ngl some mega tears were shed leaving Vernal and multiple times this week after (wow that place has my whole HEART!!!), but it's fine. Springville will hopefully be good once we get things rolling down here!

my new comp is the SISTER MADDIE DRAPER! she is from San Clemente, California and has only 2 transfers left. She was originally called Spanish speaking to Provo so we do language studies and prayers in Spanish which is kinda fun, especially when she says "gracias por la cerveza de los miembros" instead of "el servicio" hahaha(that would be "members beer" instead of "service" lol whoops). She loves skateboarding and basketball, is the youngest in her fam, and is a total sweetheart. She has some ADHD, so my patience is def tried everyday and its been quite the learning curve. Super chill and complete opposite of sis gill, so we are learning to work together in v different ways, but it will be a good transfer!

I like to run and sis draper likes to skateboard. Perfect for morning workouts right? Sadly not so, because she woke up a day after we attempted that and may or may not have pulled a muscle in her lower leg. My short 2.5 mile run is kinda a long 2.5 mile ride on a board using only one leg. I'm an awful comp!! Especially when we are in one of the few walking areas in the mish soooo we have been spending lots of travel time limping around the neighborhoods. Thank goodness for miracles to meet people while we're outside and for our sweet senior couple to drive us at night. Mostly good laughs all around, but pray that she heals quick or we get a car soon bc our work has been SLOW as all get out this week!

Also we went to a member's for part of the super bowl last night, so that was a first haha. I only watched a couple highlights and one weird commercial (not even the dorito commercials...sad) and listened to the halftime show, but it was a fun night hanging with some RMs and their big family! We heard some bomb mission stories and got some really great advice, so it was a 10/10 experience haha. 

miracle: The very first day we were here, we knocked doors with one of our RSPs. She had some people in mind for us to contact, so we let her lead the way. One house we knocked on was a less active family, but they have a 9 year old daughter (add them to the class haha) who was never baptized bc they wanted her to learn more. So we quickly scheduled a lesson at the doorstep and were able to teach her this week and hopefully get her on date soon!! 

spiritual thought: 

We have been doing lots of zoom calls with our members to share messages bc we cant eat with them and see them that way regularly. The stake is very missionary minded and wants us to help encourage the ward members to be that way as well in inviting their friends to be involved in the gospel. One scripture we have been sharing a lot is in Moroni 7:22 that says,

"For behold, God knowing all things, being from everlasting to everlasting, behold, he sent angels to minister unto the children of men, to make manifest concerning the coming of Christ; and in Christ there should come every good thing." Often times we pray for missionaries to hw successful in finding those to teach, but we should ALL be praying for ways to be angels in ministering and sharing our testimonies of Christ. It is the member's job to find and our job as missionaries to teach. Don't be afraid to share a scripture on social media, send a talk to a friend, invite a coworker to sacrament meeting, etc. Every good thing is from Christ, so bringing other to Him by simply extending an invitation will bless your life and theirs as well. If we don't invite, they can't accept! Lmk how your member missionary efforts are going! :)

love you all!

sis dougall 

 Flaming Gorge from last p day

the district! (tears were shed)

beautiful views leaving Vernal

transfers and goodbyes!!

Olivia bean?? Love our stops at campus hehe

Our excommunicated friend, Glenn, gave us a cookbook and signed it to the elders lol

 The new comp, sis Draper

Some niiiiiice weather on transfer day

week 16: we are the SPLITTING sisters

Not to brag, but we have the BEST zone here in Vernal!! "What team?!" "WILDCATS...don't worry about it." 

Our DL, Elder Coulam and his comp, Elder Garrick, have too much fun preparing our p day activities for us! Last Monday's activity was "district Olympics" where each companionship competed in corn hole, guess the candy jar, bocce ball, jeopardy, a scavenger hunt, the holy ghost game, and more. We had sooo much fun together as a district and I can honestly say I have never laughed so hard for 3 hours straight. Even missionary Rick(a convert of 3 years who is basically one of the elders...pic to follow) was there and his personality came OUT!! We ended the afternoon with "the mishies"(play on the Dundees from the office) and we all got little trophies. I was the GWOAT, greatest wrapper of all time, and we all got a pretty good laugh from our whack awards. Half our district is leaving at transfers, so it was a good way to end the transfer!! We're heading to Flaming Gorge today, so that will be our final hurrah and I'm pretty pumped! 

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes!! It was so fun to get cards and messages all day and feel so loved! The whole day was spent saying lots of goodbyes, which was good to be with my fav people but also so sad to be leaving! We also got acai bowls for lunch and ribs for dinner(w the Pratts at sloppy pig again!!!)! AND got to join the YW for their activity with some of my fav girls, so it was a dang good day!! I officially made it to 20 woohoo!🥳

Breesa's baptism was yesterday!! The one and only in vernal that sister Gilliland and I found and baptized together! Super awesome and their whole family is super on top of things. One of our elders, Elder Garrick, was able to baptize her and it made for a great last Sunday here! 

TRANSFER NEWS: Your girl sis Dougall will officially be hitting her third area on her third transfer!! I am heading to...SPRINGVILLE and am super pumped to be back covering part of where we covered in BYU(just family wards this time hehe). New area, new comp, warmer weather, it's going to be good! I am pretty sad to be leaving Vernal bc I have LOVED it here, but am excited for the next adventure!! 

MIRACLE: 90% of vernal is fifth generation farmers who have been here literally forever, so when we go to door contact people, they have already been talked to 180000x by previous missionaries. This means they are either super friendly, but not interested or super annoyed and also...not interested. I figured we were getting nowhere with that, so I decided to come up with a map of the ONE high turnover townhouse neighborhood in our area and we tracted it a few times this week. Our efforts were def successful, because we found 4 new people to teach just from one street!! Jay, Hailey, Kelly, and Mike!! We had a lesson with Jay and Hailey this week(both age 10 haha) and have appointments with Kelly and Mike happening later this week. I'm sad to leave right as our teaching pool is being built back up(we had to drop literally 5 people this week!!), but am excited to see the work continue here in Vernal!

catch ya next week from the other side of the mountains!! 

love sis dougall

The BEST district!! UB has my heart!

Our RSPs sweatshirt lol

The big 20!!

Acai bowls for birthday lunch

Missionary Rick and the elders made this rad cake!

The Pratts at sloppy pig haha

The Breen twins! We painted prayer rocks w them this week!

Tim and his "adopted daughters"

Hannah Rich told us she had prayed for sisters and she cried when I told her I was leaving

The YW made me cupcakes aww

Breesa's baptism!