MY COMPANION IS A VEGETARIAN FROM GERMANY…

 Last week I was to spend the day in Cedar City for transfers... Cedar City is huge compared to Richfield! It was so weird being in a populated area!!!! Ha-ha

What a great week it has been in Richfield!!! I got my new companion and she is from Armsberg Germany which is close to Dortmond!  She speaks really good English... she barely even has an accent ha-ha.   She has been serving in the Visitors Center at the St George Temple for a year -so this is her first time being a full- time teaching missionary!  She is awesome...and she is also a vegetarian ha-ha.  But I make sure to let our dinner’s appointments know that I am NOT a vegetarian. I’m a Texan who hates beans and she is a German who hates meat ha!  The funny part is that we had chili for dinner two days in a row!!!!  

Oh and this week Sister Lipke and I have been in a trio( three of us)  with Sister Evans!  Sister Evans companion is not here yet so she has been with us all week...it’s been way fun!  Crowded but fun. It’s been hard for her because she hasn’t been in her own area yet...but she’s awesome and doing the best she can.  Her companion comes tomorrow.

I’m reading the Book of Mormon I’m in 3 Nephi 13, my goal is to finish by general conference/Easter weekend and I’m going to make it!  Its amazing reading the Book of Mormon while on a mission...because there is so much missionary work in it!!!  It’s the best!!

Oh and the BEST part of the week was on Sunday because so many investigators actually came to church!!!  ahhh it’s the best feeling in the world to see people we are teaching come to church!!!

 there are people who are ready so change their lives and they know they can have that happiness through the gospel. There is this man that we are teaching who  read the bible hundreds of times (while in jail) ha  but he knows so much and he is so excited to learn more! 

 The work has been amazing here! We are teaching some really great people. Our baptism from last week got moved to this week...but I’m looking forward to it.  The hardest part now of getting people to commit to be baptized is their smoking habits.  Ugh!  so many people smoke!!!! I don’t understand!  We have a stop smoking program to help them quit… and if people are willing...it works!!  

Sharing the Plan of Salvation with investigators is my favorite, Because seeing their face and their reaction is the best!  As they realize It all makes sense to them and it answers so many of their questions.

This gospel is changing lives in Richfield!!!  I LOVE MY JOB!

Love yall!

Sister Titensor

ACH LACH DOCH MAL!!!

 NEW iPads, Manti Temple Trip and a New Companion from Germany Tomorrow!

Well, we finally got our new iPads this week!  It comes with a lot of

restrictions but it also has so many tools that we as missionaries can use!

So many videos to share! It's awesome!

This week has been crazy busy and awesome!

We found some really great new investigators...well actually they kinda found us! Ha but

they are awesome! I wish I could tell you every detail  of how they found us, but that would

take way too long!  Just know that these people are prepared to hear

the gospel and I feel so much love for them.

We have one lady who is older and has been taking lessons FOREVER but

she would never get baptized... But on Saturday we were visiting her

and she finally decided to get baptized...THIS SATURDAY. So we have a

lot to do before her baptism this week but I'm so excited! It's a

miracle!

And earlier last week, a few couples from the stake I am serving over went on a

trip to New Zealand . One of them was one of our ward mission leaders

and his wife. Well they got in a bad car wreck and 3 of the members

from Richfield Stake died. Our ward mission leader is the only one that

survived and he was the driver. It was so tragic and sad.  But it's amazing to

see the type of community that Richfield has. Every person we

meet...member or not...is concerned and praying for the families. It's

so sad but it's bringing this community together. It's amazing to see

the love they have for each other even people who don’t know them.

On Saturday we got to take some recent converts to the temple for the

first time to do baptisms. We drove to Manti and it was awesome!! So

happy that they had a great experience . Royal who is 76 couldn't do the

actual baptisms so a younger boy did it for him. This boy was baptized

for 31 of Royal’s family names!!  Haha but he did great. Royals face when he heard his

family names was priceless. It was the best! And he just stood looking

at the temple forever because of its beauty. It was a great day!

Well transfers are this week and I'm staying in Richfield!   Sister

Pearson is going home today :(   I'm really going to miss her.  I'm going

to Cedar city for the night and I will meet my new companion tomorrow!

Her name is Sister Lipke and she's from Germany!!  Haha I'm excited to

meet her and I'll get to show her what Richfield is all about!! 

We have some amazing investigators and they are excited to know more.

I love sharing this gospel especially seeing people's faces when all of

their questions are answered through this gospel. It's the best!   

It doesn't happen all the time but when people are truly changed through

Christ it's the most amazing thing in the world!   I LOVE MY JOB!

Love y'all!

Sister Titensor

MISSION CONFERENCE IN BEAVER UTAH….                                      MARCH 9^TH , 2015

We had our Mission Conference in Beaver on Wednesday. We talked all about our mission receiving iPads and the safeguards of it. They even have handbooks and an online course we have to take for it. We did not get our iPads yet...we get them hopefully this week on Friday!!  The tools on the iPads will be amazing and so helpful!!! And in a few months we will get to be on Facebook so that will be interesting!    Elder Evans and Elder Switzer of the seventy came and spoke to us. It was way good! Their talks were amazing. 

 On Thursday, we planned a missionary fireside to invite our investigators and less actives too! It turned out awesome!!!  There is this Choir called One Voice...and it’s a group of high school age kids that go around the country and sing! They sang a bunch of songs...Look up the song Gethsemane...its beautiful!!!  We also had a couple of recent converts speak and share their testimonies. It turned out really well!

This coming Saturday, we are taking a group of recent converts to the temple for the first time to do baptisms!!  We are going to the Manti Temple.  We are taking this 76 yr old man who just got baptized!!!  His name is Royal and he is seriously changed so much. He is amazing and he loves learning more about the gospel! We have been helping him find family names to take to the temple on familysearch.org. He loves it!   Oh, and I even found a couple of names to take to the temple as well from my family tree! so I’m excited for that, It was so random how I found them! Ha

Well we found some new people this week! It’s interesting how the Lord works...He sends us to people at the exact moment that they need us!!! We tried to find this one teenage boy for two weeks!!! But we could never find him...until Friday we finally found him!! And the weird thing was that he was expecting us. Because… little did we know that his friend had talked to him that exact day about the church and told this boy that he would send the missionaries. But we didn’t know about that until after we met him. It was perfect! He is so excited to learn!

We also had an interesting lesson with a Muslim man...I’m pretty sure he was just trying to convert us to Muslim because we could barely get a word in! He wanted to read to us from the to the Quran and it was interesting. I learned a lot about the Muslim culture  so that was a plus!  

This week was full of ups and downs, Not one investigator came to church and thats super tough. But I have faith that this week will be amazing! This is Sister Pearsons last week and then she goes home!!! I’m so sad!!! I will know if I’m getting transferred on Friday. But no worries, I have learned that the Lord has a time and a place for everything!!!

Sharing this gospel makes me so happy!!!

Love YALL!!!!

Sister Titensor

MORE SNOW….                                                                     March 2nd 2015

 This Wednesday we have a mission conference in Beaver! So our whole mission will come together and we will get our I Pads...I’m assuming that we will have training on them as well. WOOHOO!  I Pads will be so helpful!!

Well, last week on P-day our district went sledding. We drove to this hill that was pretty steep and high...it looked awesome!!  So we climbed up, it was tough because there was a layer of ice underneath the snow. But we just kept going up...ha!  So eventually we all went down. Let’s just say that is was not the smartest idea. The hill had ice and tons of rocks under the snow. So… half way down I flew off my sled. Yeah, let’s just say we all  got hurt. I hurt my knee pretty bad (aka the picture)  it was really swollen but it’s doing okay now! But pretty much everyone was bleeding and bruised so let’s just say it wasn’t the best idea! So moral of the story...don’t be stupid!!!

Well sad story...but we are teaching this family. And they are awesome! But the dad has never been home when we taught.  This week he was there, but he sat in the other room. The lesson went amazing and the spirit was so strong!!  They even wanted to be baptized!!!  The kids looked so excited! Then all the sudden...the dad says in the background, "I don’t think anymore of this teaching is necessary" and he doesn’t want us to continue teaching his family.  When he said that, his whole family’s faces just changed. They all looked so disappointed!! And it was the worst feeling in the world because I know they felt the spirit and were excited to be baptized.  NOOOO!!  It was so hard. But we are still allowed to visit them and we will pray that their Fathers heart will be softened.  They are an awesome family and I know the Lord does not want us to give up on them!

Then another day we had a cool experience!  We met this lady and she immediately let us in. She is in Richfield because her kids live here but she doesn’t have custody of them.   They are 12, 9 and 8 years old.  She gets to see them once a day. She has been through a lot in her life. But she loves her children and wants to change. She said her children are about to get baptized and she wants to know what this church is about! She was way happy to see us and she was way open!  And …the crazy part is that we are already teaching her children!!!   We had no idea until we saw their pictures on the wall.  She is awesome and I know there are great things in store for this family. 

Well it’s snowing a lot!  This morning we shoveled an older man’s drive way and he was way grateful.  It’s the first time I have ever had to shovel snow!  Oh and I was able to travel to Manti for a day for exchanges so that was fun!   I have met so many people who have gone through so much but I have seen the gospel change lives!  We taught a Young women’s lesson on the atonement... the atonement of Jesus Christ is the most amazing gift we have yet so many people don’t know how it can help them!!   That is why we have to share it this beautiful message!!

I Love this Gospel… there is a lot of work to do!

LOVE YALL
Sister Titensor

SNOW !

 The weather this week was amazing!! Until Saturday...it got super cold and it’s been snowing ever since. So the nice weather is gone :(     for a while.   This week was interesting. We had so many appointments this week but almost every one of them either cancelled or they were not home. L  So, we have just been knocking on random doors. And it actually works sometimes! That is how we found Kylie who is the 9 yr old that we are teaching! She is so excited to learn. She remembers everything. It makes me so happy to teach her!!!  She has a super hard home life. We went to her house for our appointment and she was waiting for us on the doorstep with her book of Mormon!!! SO CUTE!

   

On another day...we went to this one apartment and there was no answer. So we just knocked on all these different apartments until someone answered…. And no one did!!   After knocking on 6 or 7 more doors, we started walking away … when the last door that we had knocked opened!   It was a middle aged lady and she let us in. Come to find out, she was a less active member of the church, and she had been going through a really hard time. She had been praying and praying for help. And right away she knew that us knocking on the door was an answer to her prays.  We had a really good lesson with her and I KNOW that the Lord sent us there in answer to her prayers. It was a way cool experience! The Lord really does work in mysterious ways!

Like I said, we had a lot of cancellations this week. So we just prayed and knocked on a lot of doors. Many of those who are not members are very bitter and are not interested at all.   Many of the people here have gone through so many hard things!!  We are even teaching a woman who is on probation.  Almost every investigator we are teaching smokes. So I pretty much smell like smoke all the time! 

We are working with a lot of inactive or less active members.

We taught at a Stake Visiting Teaching conference on Saturday. It was fun.   The members are so important in missionary work!  They can help so much!

Julie Rogers, an LDS (Mormon) painter came and talked to the Stake Relief Society. She has the coolest stories. Her paintings are amazing and she had a story about every painting.  My favorite one was of Amanda Smith!! 

  

Well on Sunday...guess what? I had to give ANOTHER talk in sacrament meeting. I just gave one two weeks ago!!!! And me and Sister Pearson were the only two speakers because the other speaker got sick. ..But it is getting easier..I guess.  Ha ha...And since we are over 10 wards...we have to travel around to the different wards on Sunday. So we went to 3 sacrament meetings yesterday.  

We have a lot of exciting things coming up this week! Hopefully find more people to teach.  We have a mission conference on March 4th and I think that is when we will get our I pads!!

 We are still getting fed a ton... ha-ha!!   The other day we were fed buffalo meat… so that was way good!

Great things are happening in Richfield UTAH!!!

LOVE YALL!    

Sister Titensor

A WEDDING AND A BAPTISM 

 Well, people were right... We are treated so well here, I have not had to pay for a meal yet!  PEOPLE LOVE US!  One time, we were eating and someone paid for our meal and then they also gave us a $20 gift card to come back to that restaurant!  Ha-ha SCORE!  . Then I bought a new dress and they told us that the missionaries get 30% off in their store. . Utah is the best!!   Oh and for some reason there are a bunch of Dallas Cowboy fans here...one man we are teaching even has a huge Dallas Cowboys tattoo on his arm!   Sister Pearson, my companion being from England gets so confused when football is the topic of conversation. All she knows is to say "go cowboys" in her British accent. Ha it’s pretty great! 

 Wednesday I got sick. It was a rough morning honestly. But we had an appointment and things to do so I had to get going. It was a hard day because I was feeling terrible and then on top of that we were not having any luck! No one would answer their doors and appointments kept cancelling!!! It was rough. But we kept working.   Then, the last hour of our day we just stopped and prayed to find someone!   Not too long after our prayer, we met this  13 yr old and her mother neither of them were members of a church. It was perfect because we found out that the father was an inactive member of our church.   Immediately we knew we were sent there for a reason!    We were lucky to find someone who is not already a member of our church because almost everyone we meet here is already a member or a less active member!  Most of the people we are teaching right now are youth. Many of their parents are less active in the church, but their children show a lot of interest in the gospel.

 We knocked on one door and the mother was a Mormon, but not attending church, her daughter was 10 and had not baptized. We shared a scripture with them and I said something about God's love. Then the mom said that she had heard those exact words from her friend who was a member of our church just the day before. She thought that was so weird… But I KNOW that it was the spirit. It was not my words. It was the Lords.  It was a way cool experience and we have an appointment with them tomorrow!  I’m so excited to work with them. 

In another lesson, we are teaching a family. And the mom said she has prayed to know which church to go to and for God to show her the light. SOUND FAMILIAR?!?  It was way cool and the lesson went great! The Lord truly sends us to people who are prepared!!!!

On Valentine’s Day one of our investigators got married!  It was the best...the bishop performed the marriage.  It was way fun. Then, that same night, we had a baptism for Felisia. She was so nervous at first - but she had a huge grin on her face after she was baptized.. It was way cool to see that! 

 We have been taking a lot of our people who have recently joined the church to the Family History Center.   We are teaching them how to find their ancestors.  We are planning to take a group of recent converts to the temple soon.  I’m super excited for that!

Well this week I have decided to start reading the Book of Mormon again with a specific purpose in mind. My goal is to finish it by April 5th...which is General Conference and Easter!!! That only gives me like a month and a half but I know I can do it!!   I would invite anyone who would like to accept the challenge to do it with me!  Think of how amazing you will feel on Easter!  Start reading it with a purpose or a question you want answered.  I know it will be a great experience.

"Those that move forward with a happy spirit will find that things always work out"

-President Gordon B. Hinckley 

Love you all!! Thanks for all the support!

Sister Titensor

WELCOME TO RICHFIELD UTAH 2/9/15

WELCOME TO RICHFIELD, UTAH    

Well I arrived safely in St. George on Wednesday. We flew in a tiny little plane to this tiny little airport! We had training and meetings with our mission president for most of the day. President and Sister Center are awesome! Then, I met my companion Sister Pearson! She is from New Castle, England. This is actually her last transfer so she will be leaving in about 5 weeks. So sad...she is an awesome trainer and I am loving learning about England! So after I met her we drove 3 hours north to Richfield Utah! We drove through Cedar City and Parowan to get here. It’s a relatively small town...(not as some town’s we drove through) There are two stakes in Richfield and Sister Pearson and I are in charge of the entire Richfield East Stake! (a Stake is 10 congregations or wards)  It’s so weird being in charge of a whole stake...we have 10 wards with 10  bishops plus all of the ward mission leaders! We are the only Sisters in our zone. Sister Pearson has been in this area for 4 months so she knows her way around really well! Oh, and we have a car!! We live in the basement of a member family and its way nice!! So lucky! I have not spent a dime of my own money yet...we get fed to death!!!!

The first night I was here we taught a lesson! I was so nervous but the spirit was the guide and it turned out really well!  We even invited him to be baptized on Feb 28.  We are busy teaching a lot!! We have several people interested in learning about our church, with several who have baptismal dates. We also continue to teach a lot of people who have recently joined the church or people who are less active. We have been super busy! In fact this Saturday we have a baptism and we also have a wedding for an investigator! Ha-ha it’s awesome. It’s amazing how prepared people are to hear the gospel. Richfield is the best place!!!  I love it here!!!

The weather has been in the 60s the entire time... best weather ever! The funny thing about Richfield is that everyone that lives here grew up here. I guess people just can’t seem to leave! We taught a family yesterday and it went very well. Oh, and they have 10 brand new puppies so we had puppies sleeping on our laps the entire time!  it was the BEST! 

Oh and I had to give a talk on Sunday!! SERIOUSLY?!?! My first Sunday?!?  Sister Person and I and one youth were the only speakers. We talked about the atonement and missionary work and it actually turned out really well! So, don’t ever complain about giving a talk in church, because I only had 30 min to prepare!  It’s been a great week and I am loving Richfield UTAH! So much to do!!! This church is so true and it can change people’s lives!! Thanks for the support and LOVE YALL!!!

Sister Titensor