ATTENTION: The Utah Ogden mission is the BEST!!!

email 28 Apr 2015

Wow. This week was full of miracles! Have I said that I love being a missionary? Because I do. I guess I'll start off with some fun stuff. So this past week we had a meeting at the mission office and there's a table there where people can take a leave things. So sometimes there's some cute clothes that are up for grabs! Well this week there was Bananagrams and Phase 10!!! SCORE! And also 2 matching t-shirts that say "batcorn" on it. It's literally an ear of corn dressed up as batman. We have no clue why. Or where they came from. But sister Betzold and I grabbed them so we can match:) haha

This past week we were in the middle of a lesson when all of sudden we hear this voice come from my bag...so I figured we accidental dialed someone's number. But then we heard "911 what is your emergency?"  WE CALLED 911!!!!! In the middle of a lesson, too!!! So we had to assure them that we were safe and we were just missionaries. It was sooo embarrassing! 

So last P-day we were going to a fun little artsy antique store called "Only in Ogden." It's downtown so the only parking space available was a parallel one and we didn't feel like dealing with that. So being lazy, we parked further away and walked to the store. Right as we were leaving the store, a HUGE accident happened between 4 cars. It was such a tender mercy that we didn't park there!!! I know Heavenly Father made us lazy in that moment to avoid the accident. They hit the parked car in the spot that we were about to park. And all the other cars parked around there couldn't leave because the accident was in the way. I know Heavenly Father was looking out for us. 

The musical fireside was this past Sunday and we had a practice in the tabernacle on Friday. We get there early and we're setting everything up when a security guy comes up to us and tells us that they accidentally double booked the tabernacle and he asked us if we could postpone our rehearsal for 4 hours. We had people coming down from Logan and all over the mission! We couldn't put it off that long. Especially since that's a long time out of our area. All of us were freaking out and didn't know what to do. So of course, when in doubt, say a prayer. We all knelt down and told Heavenly Father our concerns. Not 2 minutes after the prayer, the security man came back to let us know that he got a call from the other people that they needed to postpone their stuff till later that afternoon. DIRECT ANSWER TO OUR PRAYER. Heavenly Father knew that our rehearsal needed to happen. He wanted our musical fireside to go well. He needed it to touch people's lives. 

This last Sunday was the best!!! We spoke in a ward along with a girl's farewell talk. Our topic was courage and specifically the scripture Moses 6:31-32. Which is the scripture that helped me decide to come on a mission. That scripture is dear to my heart. I remember at the beginning of my mission, whenever I would get a prompting to do or say something, I would pray that sister Hadden would receive the same prompting so that I didn't have to do it. Hahaha How bad is that?!?! But then I studied that scripture and realized that the commandment wasn't to sit and watch. It was to open your mouth. Act. Take that leap of faith. Have the courage to do My will. C.S. Lewis said, "Courage is every virtue at its testing point." It takes courage to live the gospel. It takes courage to make it through the test of every virtue. But just as God promised Enoch, "Go forth and do as I have commanded thee, and no man shall pierce thee." 

Sorry this is a long letter, but last thing! THE MUSICAL FIRESIDE!!! We did the musical fireside in the Ogden tabernacle on Sunday. It holds 1600 people and there were 2500 people there!!!!!!!! They said it was the most filled in the history of the Ogden tabernacle!!!! Can you imagine?!?!?! They filled all the overflow rooms, cry rooms, and offices!!! Miracles happened. Sister Betzold was super sick. She couldn't even talk. Then she received a blessing from an Elder and she had her voice completely back for the entire fireside, and right after, it left again. I know people needed to hear her song. Heavenly Father put this fireside together. 100%. The group in charge of it has been so prayerful about everything they did and I have no doubt that it was exactly what Heavenly Father wanted. It was so spiritual and such an amazing experience to be a part of it. So many miracles have happened for us to be able to pull it off. I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father is aware of all of his children. He's aware of the ones performing and he's aware of the ones that need questions answered through our music. 

Here is a link to the fireside audio segments on Sound Cloud. It includes many 28 short segments of beautiful musical performances intermixed with brief presentations of the Savior's birth, life, atonement, and how He continues to guide his Church today. 

Sister Sarlls sings a duet with Sister Smith called "Blessed Redeemer" (Sniff & Snarls together again, haha) 

https://soundcloud.com/utah-ogden-mission/sets/ogden-musical-fireside-april

I love the gospel so much!!!

Love, 
Sister Sarlls

Fireside and Feet

email 21 Apr 2015

Hey y'all!

This past week has gone by soooo fast! We've been so busy getting ready for the musical fireside! But it's going to be AMAZING!!! With the new Ogden tabernacle we are able to show videos and pictures of Christ during the songs. And we found out that they're recording it and making everyone a cd! I'm super excited:) 

There are so many people here with fun little animals!!! Someone owns a baby duck, another person owns and baby chick, another owns a baby turkey!!! All these baby animals are driving me crazy!!! They're sooooo cute! We got to snuggle with them this past week. :) 

I'm so so so grateful that I have Sister Betzold as my companion. She's amazing and so spiritual. She strengthens me so much with her beautiful testimony. We have so much fun together too. I love her so much:)


So we were over at these people's house talking to them about meeting with us. We were sitting there chatting with them when all of a sudden the guy sitting there said, "Can you take your shoes off?" And I was like, "uhhhhh.....what?" He goes, "I really like toes. You look like you would have cute toes. Can I see them?" He proceeded to look at my hands and assured me that I have cute feet based on my hands. WHAAAAT?!?! Nooooooo!!!!! Hahaha. It was the most interesting experience of my mission. He kept asking for the rest of the time we were there. Haha soooo interesting. 

We were teaching someone the other night about CPR (church, prayer, and reading the scriptures). We were talking about how even if you don't think you have time to read your scriptures, you at least have 30 seconds. You can actually read a lot in 30 seconds! And those 30 seconds turns into a minute. And then you start reading because you have to finish the story. And then you continue reading because you're enjoying the revelatory experience that you're having. I've had companions that have LOVED and immersed themselves in the scriptures. I've never been like that. But I wanted to be! So I started doing that. I spent part of my hour of personal study every day immersing myself in the scriptures. Specifically the Book of Mormon. And I love the scriptures now! I can truly say that I love reading my scriptures. I love all that I learn from them. They are precious to me. They are the word of God. 

I was studying the 10 commandments the other day and I realized that all of the ten commandments fall under the categories of the two commandments Jesus Christ gave us.

1. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind."2. "And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." (Matthew 22:37-39)

Jesus Christ gave us these commandments as a higher law. If we keep these two simple commandments, we will automatically be keeping the Ten Commandments and all other commandments God has given us. Because of our love for Him and our love for our fellow men. 

This week has been great and super super busy!!! I love missionary work and this gospel!!! 

Love, 
Sister Sarlls 

Promotional video for the musical fireside, English.

Promotional video for the musical fireside, Spanish.

The Struggle (it's real)

email 14 Apr 2015

This week has been hilarious! Sister Betzold and I were knocking on some doors and we came upon this house with a GIANT porch! They didn't look like they were home so we decided to practice our moonwalking on the porch. ... Well it turns out they were home. And they opened the door to us moonwalking across their porch. We just started CRACKING up!!!! But they let us in and let us make rice crispies with them:). It was a good night. There's this Elder in my district that everyone calls "Trench-coat-jones" because he wears one. Every. Single. Day. It's interesting haha but he told me a riddle about himself. He said "I'm the oldest and the youngest at the same time. And I'm the only child and not the only child at the same time". If you think of an answer, let me know!!! I was telling someone about him and I made the mistake of telling them he ONLY wears trench-coats instead of ALWAYS wears trench-coats. They were rather disturbed and I will never live that down with that family again, haha. Another Sister Sarlls Struggle moment. Someone was asking me where my old area was and I told them Ben Lomond. And they said "is that in Logan or in Ogden?" Automatically I responded with "Mountain!". Hahaha. I don't know why the struggle was especially real this week. But it was, haha. Sister Betzold and I are going to write a song about it since we are Always struggling, Haha.

We got to have a total service day this week!!! I loooooove service days!!! We started off by joining one of the wards by cleaning up the community. So we went to this old couples house and stacked all their wood and pulled weeds and then we burned it all! SO COOL!!! But the coolest part of that day was when we got to go split and create a new beehive!!! YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT! Sister Sarlls was brave enough to handle a beehive!!! It was so amazing! It was kind of a spiritual experience being able to learn about one of God's precious creations. It reminded me of the song "all things bright and beautiful". The earth around us testifies of God. I love the last line of the song that says "How great is God Almighty, who has made all things well" His creations are perfect. He made them well. He made us perfectly flawed so we are able to learn and grow:). As I looked at the bees on my hand closely, it made me realize that God is in the details of our lives. He's aware of the little tiny bugs on the earth. And he's aware of the little tiny pains and aches in our life. His love is infinite and everlasting. I only got stung once, too! But that's because I smushed it between my thighs. Whoopsies. 

Emily's companions indicating their assignment order.

This past Sunday we had our musical fireside in Logan (Ogden is on the 26th). It was amazing!!!!! Something cool was that I was able to have ALL of my companions there:). I got a picture of all of us together holding up the number of companion they were. I'm so grateful I get to sing here on my mission:). The theme of the fireside is "Redeemer". Sister Betzold is singing a song called "Hope's Song". It's from veggie tales but it's sooo pretty! The last line of the song says "He died for us to give us life, and to give us hope, He rose". I love this beautiful message it gives. I felt the spirit so strongly when she sang it. I love my Savior so much. I love His sacrifice for us. I looked up the definition of Life and it means "something in constant change". I love that definition in correspondence with the song! He died for us so we can change! I hope to use His sacrifice daily to change. And to use His resurrection daily to have hope. His gospel is a gospel of Hope! 

All my love, 
Sister Sarlls 

Snowfall on April 15th!

HE IS RISEN!!!

email 07 Apr 2015

Howdy howdy!!! 

So I looooooove my new area and new companion, Sister Betzold! It's a homey feeling like Huntsville was. A lot of farmland. Sometimes it smells AWFUL here because of all the animals haha but I love it all the same! My new companion is Sister Betzold from St. Louis Missouri. She's sooooo musical! She plays the ukulele, piano, mandolin, and violin. And she sings beautifully!!! We have so much fun together and can't stop cracking up about random things haha. 

We got Siri on our iPads and we have WAY too much fun with it!!! Haha I'll attach some funny responses. 

We were passing by this cow one day and the little baby cows were leaping on each other and playing and it was SO CUTE!!! So I was like "the leaping cow! Hey that could be the name of a restaurant!" But Sister Betzold thought I said rest home instead of restaurant hahaha we were cracking up imagining a rest home named "the leaping cow" hahaha 

We were at dinner one night with this older couple and the lady welcomed us in and I noticed something on her face. It was a bright green gob of something. So I told her she had a little something on her face. Well.....it turns out it was a bright green MOLE. SO EMBARRASSING!!!!! I wanted to just go hide in a hole I was soooo embarrassed! I don't know how many times I said I was sorry! It was AWFUL! 

Well the musical fireside is coming up and Sniff and Snarls are back together singing "Blessed Redeemer" by Casting Crowns. I'm super excited! I'm also involved in a small mixed choir. It's 12 people, 2 on each part.  (and they're all good!) And we're singing a song called Baba Yetu. It's "The Lords Prayer" in Swahili!!! ITS AWESOME!!! It's so powerful and exciting and we have drums and shakers! I'm sooooo excited! I've missed all my choir music! Especially being in a small group!

Casting Crown Blessed Redeemer

(hoping someone sends a recording of a Sniff and Snarls performance) 

This past Friday I was reunited with another companion, Sister Hadden!!! This is her last transfer and I cried thinking about her leaving! But we got the special gift of being able to go through the temple for the first time with someone we worked with in Huntsville. It was so amazing! The best part about missions is seeing people change. I've seen this beautiful daughter of God completely blossom. It was amazing looking back at when we first met with her, to now when she was going through the temple to make a sacred covenant with God. We were all crying with joy! It was a beautiful day to see my dear friend become who Heavenly Father always knew she could be.

General Conference (watch/listen/read online at the link - Ed) was AWESOME!!!!!! I wasn't able to go to the conference center but I did watch it on tv! I loved the emphasis on families! So many talks about parenting and families and loving one another! It just shows me really how important families are. They are the object of the whole plan! I've been starting to memorize The Family: A Proclamation To The World. As I've been studying it, it's been a cool experience realizing what my divine roles are in Heavenly Fathers plan. And it makes me appreciate the roles others have! So thank you Mom and Dad for magnifying your calling as a mother, father, nurturer, provider, and more. You mean everything to me and I'm so grateful for your love and guidance! 

I have come to love Easter more and more. I'm so grateful that my Redeemer lives. I'm grateful for His loving sacrifice for every single one of us. I'm grateful that I am able to change and become better because of the atonement. I know without a doubt that He lives. He loves. He heals. 

I'm doing great and I love where I am:) I have a good chance of being in the Ogden mission if I stay here till July! But I could still move to Logan, we shall see:) 

With all my Easter love, 
Sister Sarlls 

Yet another way to spell our name - Ed.

  

For those not familiar with the ELIZA reference, she was an early natural language processing computer program developed in the 60's at MIT. She is named after Eliza Doolittle from Pygmalion / My Fair Lady. - Ed.