Joy

  

Camp Pendleton

LIVE LIKE BEAU, BE HAPPI! .   CARDIFF BY THE SEA

VG Donuts!

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BYE SHAY!
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Bye Sister Cam Richey!

We went to our last district meeting for this transfer. What? This transfer is already over???

Happy 20th birthday, Tess! Love you so much.

Our morning routine is always the same. We wake up and run to the ocean and embrace the world. We run home and do personal and companion studies. One morning the sunrise was pink and the ocean was pink. I love this beautiful world that God created.

A member, Anna, who is an awesome return missionary, took us to a fantastic taco shop, Lucha Libre. She brought her little sister and a couple of non member friends so we got to do some teaching at lunch.

We had two new member lessons with Shay because she is leaving. She is being deployed. We will miss her. Oh we’re so sad. She is awesome. Sister Richey, who goes home tomorrow (cry face) gave me some of her Happi pins so we spent all day one day passing out happi pins, pass along cards and Books of Mormon. I was just filled with joy! Why not? I am a missionary sharing His joy, the joy of the gospel.

We also taught new member lessons with Aubree and Rosanna. They are both awesome! The point of all the new member lessons are so I can get to know people in the ward because I am a newbie.

We did a lot of follow up with PIs and did a lot of contacting. Woot woot for the Lord’s work.  I found a scripture in D&C 82:3. Love it! It says where much is given much is required. That makes perfect sense. Put in your best, you get much more than you give.

We went to camp Pendleton and met some marines who helped us out. They are awesome. They look big and tough but are super nice and love to talk to people especially non military people. We returned another. We did a service project there on another day. We went through a bunch of canned foods with a bunch of people from our zone. We saw so many mice, it was disgusting. But after the service project we took pictures on tanks and trucks and trains.

Sister Radford took us to Pacific Coast Grill at Cardiff. It was amazing food with amazing people and right on the beach. There are windows on all the walls. So great. President is having us start to do booths on the college campuses so they took us to explain what they have done and what worked for them. We took advantage of the fact we were in Cardiff and went to VG Donuts woot woot! I got an apple fritter for Dad and a maple bar for Hannah.

We are kind of struggling to find people for us to teach. We find a lot for others so that’s ok.

Here is our new song, “I will walk five hundred miles and I will five hundred more. Just to be the missionary that walks a thousand miles to fall down at your door.” We completely reached the mile limit on our car so we had to walk everywhere. We contacted on the way there and on the way back.

We got a referral! Her name is Vanessa. She has a friend who is a member and wants to take the lessons so we are hoping we will be able to pick her up as an investigator. Just love it, just love being a missionary.

We talked to a new guy named Austin. He really wants to believe. He loves mormons for their wholesomeness and morals and all we do to help but he does not believe in God. We shared scriptures with him and Heavenly Father knows his son Austin. He wants to meet more members so we invited him to come to family night and church on Sunday. He said he would. Pray for Austin.

We are doing a new thing to get our members more involved in missionary work. We are taking a few minutes out of the beginning of each lesson to learn and practice how to be member missionaries. You don’t have to have a tag to be a missionary. It is a commandment to share this gospel with our brothers and sisters in this world.

I am so redundant, I just keep talking about joy. But that is what this is, that is life is for - men are that they might have joy, right? A new song I studied that I love talks about joy and being a missionary.

I saw a mighty angel fly;

To earth he bent his way,

A message bearing from on high

To cheer the sons of day.

Truth is the message which he bears,

The gospel’s joyful sound,

To calm our doubts, to chase our fears,

And make our joys abound.

He cries, and with a mighty voice;

Ye nations lend an ear,

And isles and continents rejoice:

The great Redeemer’s near!

He cries; let ev’ry ear attend,

And thrones and empires all!

Fear God, and make the Lord your friend,

The King, the Lord of all!

Fear God, who made the water pure,

The heavens, sea, and land.

His judgment will be swift and sure;

The day is nigh at hand.

Then, all ye people, worship God;

Give glory to his name!

To spread these tidings far abroad

The holy angel came.

We are so excited for general conference and Easter and April Fools day all in one! Heavenly Father has great things in store for us this weekend. All he asks us is to come to Him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit and repent. He just loves us so much.

I love you all so much. I am grateful to know all of you. You’re awesome. Have a great great week!

The Gospel is Joy and Peace and Happiness

Shalom and Good Evening. It has been a week! I feel like I was emailing you yesterday.

Sister Henrie and I went to a trainer follow up meeting. We learned from the APs and the President and his wife. I got to see my MTC family. Yay! I love those humans!

We had exchanges . I got to be with Sister Langton and I got to stay in our area so I  was leading out the area which was new. This week for personal studies I studied a talk by Sister Bonnie H. Cordon, “Trust in the Lord and Lean Not.” Shout out to Julie for sending it to me. I love this talk. It gives two admonitions, a warning and what it calls a glorious promise. The admonitions are to trust and acknowledge him. The warning is to not lean but focus and stay centered on Christ. And his promise is he will direct our paths.  

On exchanges it was the first day of me driving a car in two months! Woot woot! No one died so all is good. Crazy spiritual moment I found out she was studying the same talk during personal studies. We contacted tons of people and gave out copies of the Book of Mormon. We picked up a new investigator and shared with her the Peace in Christ video. I don’t know if you have seen it, I never really watched those before but she loved it.

March 14th the Packards gave us strawberry pie for dessert because it was pie day. We got back together with Sister Richey and Sister Henrie and pie day was also Beau Richey’s 18th birthday. So to celebrate Beau’s birthday we wrote notes to other sisters in our zone and addressed them from heaven and gave them to them with yellow roses and yellow Happi pins. It was sweet. Be Happi live like Beau! We can be so full of joy and happiness! It is just beautiful! That was an awesome experience.

I studied “High on a Mountain Top” for a song this week. It gave me joy. I thought of my dad and a poem he gave me about not taking the easy paths. I thought of him and mom and Ema and Papa as I studied it, all of you who gave me such an appreciation for mountains and nature and the outdoors. You all are outdoorsy humans. Ah, Oh the beauties of the earth! I think of it as I stare at the ocean.

Shout out to Britta and Ben and Nick and Chris and Kate and Hannah! I went to sonic and got me some tater tots and a slushie.

We met a man named Marco who was amazed we leave our home and family to come out here and serve missions for a year and a half. He was just like, how do you live? How do you work? How do you pay for it? He was amazed by it and gladly took a Book of Mormon, promised to read it and said he wants us to answer his questions.

We went to the RS birthday party, which was fiesta themed. So much fun! I loved that day!

My cousin Josh Birchall is home!!! He is literally 20 minutes away from me. I am so proud of him and excited he is home from Russia. I can't go see him but tell him hi!

Saturday our lesson and mini missionary canceled on us so we went to Camp Pendleton and wandered around for a while to try find some less active members. There are so many cool things there. There are a bunch of tanks, helicopters and cool things like paintballing there.

We left and did more contacting.  I got hiccups for about ten minutes and could not get rid of them so I decided the only way that I would get rid of them was to teach the gospel. So I walked up to a man and with very broken spanish introduced ourselves and talked about the Book of Mormon and when we walked away, guess what, I no longer had the hiccups! So the church is true!

This week I also studied the hymn “Come Rejoice.” People, I just have to say, I love this song! It is all about happiness and joy and how the gospel can bring you joy. The verses it references is

D&C 128:19 Now, what do we hear in the gospel which we have received? A voice of gladness! A voice of mercy from heaven; and a voice of truth out of the earth; glad tidings for the dead; a voice of gladness for the living and the dead; glad tidings of great joy. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those that bring glad tidings of good things, and that say unto Zion: Behold, thy God reigneth!

The gospel is happiness, the gospel is joy! There are so many things in this world today that can make us so not happy. But why would we want to live like that? Why would we want to live in darkness and misery? So this scripture .. the gospel is joy and peace and happiness!

Sunday we got to leave the mission and go to San Diego and go to regional YSA conference which was awesome! I learned so much. We filled our minds with God’s truths. After that we had a linger longer which was fun because it was a bunch of YSA stakes.

This morning we went with our fellow sisters in our zone for Pday breakfast and made green food and had lucky charms. We ahd a fun auction with things like candles and gatorade and silly stuff like that. Sister Richey and Sister Langton would ask "How much are you willing to pay for this?" After a while they started to ask things like, "How much are you willing to pay for her?" referring to our companions. We were like oh wow. Then they led us in an awesome discussion about how much Christ loves us and how much he was willing to pay for us, for our sins and our sadness. It was a good morning with awesome people!

Have a great week! See ya, love ya, bye!

The Book of Mormon is True

Hello, it is Sister Dalley. I have been good. My week was really stellar. I had an awesome week. I love missionary work. I love being a missionary. I also love Pday, taking a little time chillin’ and taking a little bit of time for me. I wasn’t really good at emailing last week but I was excited to go play soccer.

Monday night, we made and delivered cookies to older ladies in other wards for FHE. I loved it. I love old people. I miss my old people at work. While we were waiting for it to start our investigator Carolyn just walked in. The ward has been reaching out to her and inviting her to things and  texting so they had invited her to come. She loved it. She loved socializing and serving. I loved this ward.

While contacting we met an amazing lady, Katie, who was really open and loving to us. She has a friend who is a member. She took the Book of Mormon and said, “Ya I will read this.”

We had a new member lesson with Shay. We talked with her about prayer. I shared the song “A Child’s Prayer.” I just love it so much.  We pray He is there and He is listening and His love always surrounds us.

We had another new member lesson with Jocelyn and now she is graduated from us. We talked about the priesthood and patriarchal blessings. I just love her, she is so great.

I am just living the life! I love it. If the whole mission goes as fast as this month has gone, I am gonna die!

We had president interviews. The spiritual goal I set is to make things more personal with everyone, to do the whole teach people not lessons. I want to be better at asking inspired questions, to focus more on that person and their needs. I want to listen more. I want to leave everyone I meet knowing I believe in Christ. That I love them and that He loves me and them.

We met a woman named Sarah who is christian. She wouldn’t listen to our message but asked us to pray with her. A little tender mercy I had was she kind shook me and made me wonder a lot. She asked very challenging questions. She kept asking but wouldn’t listen to what we had to say. She asked why we need the Book of Mormon which she called the “extra scripture.” I have learned that some people ask questions not to understand but to test what we know. I started doubting myself and wondering about the Book of Mormon which is stupid I know. I started to pray in my heart and say, “I know she doesn’t know this and doesn’t want to hear this but “do I know this?” I kept praying and saying, “I need help. I need to know this to be able to teach this. I don’t know why I am doubting this but I need to believe this.”

I got in the car and flipped open my scriptures and landed on Alma 33. I didn’t know what was there but started reading in vs 5 and it was awesome. It says:

5 Yea, O God, and thou wast merciful unto me when I did cry unto thee in my field; when I did cry unto thee in my prayer, and thou didst hear me.

6 And again, O God, when I did turn to my house thou didst hear me in my prayer.

7 And when I did turn unto my closet, O Lord, and prayed unto thee, thou didst hear me.

8 Yea, thou art merciful unto thy children when they cry unto thee, to be heard of thee and not of men, and thou wilt hear them.

9 Yea, O God, thou hast been merciful unto me, and heard my cries in the midst of thy congregations.

I was like, “OK, I get it. Thanks, Heavenly Father. I know you heard my prayer and I am definitely being answered right now. Totally for me” I was sitting in the car knowing these scriptures were for me.

10 Yea, and thou hast also heard me when I have been cast out and have been despised by mine enemies;

As missionaries we have a lot of the “cast out” and “despised.” I have truly come to understand a lot about people and about what they believe and what they DO NOT believe.

11 And thou didst hear me because of mine afflictions and my sincerity; and it is because of thy Son that thou hast been thus merciful unto me, therefore I will cry unto thee in all mine afflictions, for in thee is my joy; for thou hast turned thy judgments away from me, because of thy Son.

He hears us and he answers our prayers. I saw these scriptures as He first answered my prayer and then Alma asks a few questions.

12 And now Alma said unto them: Do ye believe those scriptures which have been written by them of old?

I just went ok, why was I doubting? I do believe, I believe all of this.

14 Now behold, my brethren, I would ask if ye have read the scriptures? If ye have, how can ye disbelieve on the Son of God?

I love these verses because it 1st helped me understand that God had heard my prayer and then it teaches me that if I have read the scriptures how could I disbelieve on the son of God. The Book of Mormon is the keystone. This book is truth. Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon through the power of God.

I know. I knew before. But now I know for myself the Book of Mormon is the word of God and yes it is needed. I know this church is true, it is the true church. It was so needed and I loved it.

Later in the week, we ate dinner with Shay and taught her another new member lesson. Her friends joined us for dinner and our discussion. One of her friends, Chris, asked a whole bunch of questions and our sweet new convert Shay bore powerful testimony to him about what she knows now. I just love her. Chris was really open and accepted a Book of Mormon and committed to read it.

The hymns I studied this week were Redeemer of Israel and The Morning Breaks. They are scripture to me. They are like beautiful poetry backed by scripture. They are so powerful.

They are rude! We do not like daylight savings as missionaries. We did not know if our phone times changed automatically so we set our alarms an hour early so we woke up at like 5:30. We sorely missed that hour of sleep. The perk of fast Sunday in a YSA ward is break the fast right after church. But that is super fun!

We got to teach by the ocean this week. I draw strength from its beauty. I love it. I just love all of you. I love the emails and the letters and pictures. My Ema sent me three books of pictures. I love them.

I love you all!

Bye

I Know that My Redeemer Lives

Everything is new, everything is exciting and everything is beautiful :):) I am so grateful for everything that I have experienced good and bad:):)!

We didn’t get to go to FHE this week because they were going on trampolines. In the white handbook it specifically says “Do not go on trampolines.” They must know me and know I would probably injure myself.

Tuesday we were driving a lot and I told sister Henrie the entire plot, in depth, of Fantastic Mr. Fox. Hopefully when she goes home she will watch it and I hope she will appreciate it as much as I do. After that we had a member dinner with Mahana and Keili to a yummy soup and salad bar called Soup Plantation. Oh my gosh, it made me so happy.

My childhood pen pal from the Philippines found me on facebook and has been messaging me. It is so great! We have been catching up and I get to hear about how her life is going.

It feels like have been a missionary forever and it also feels like it is flying by. It is kind of weird. This week was another week in paradise.

Wednesday in personal studies, I have been trying to read the Book of Mormon more. I am reading it again just strait through. Very often our personal studies are not focused on what we need but more on what our investigators need. I now read the Book of Mormon with a different mindset, as a missionary and it applies just to me. I swear that is how the Book of Mormon is, it applies to everything we are doing. It is the best, I love the Book of Mormon!

We contact and contact and contact. So woot woot for that. We had a lesson with our investigator Caroline. It is kind of frustrating teaching her cuz she knows it all. She knows all the doctrine. She knows it is good. But she has had a hard past.

Some things stand out to her and some things she knows are true but she has a hard time feeling it. I got to bear my testimony about the scriptures. I want her to get it because I love her.

We were true Californians and had In -n- Out for dinner.

Happy March!

Thursday - We decided to do yoga instead of run. It was me and sister Henrie in our apartment with me going I’ve done this pose in yoga before - I don’t know what it is called and I don’t know what it does but we’ll try it. We had a zone conference about using technology in mission work. I still have no clue how to use facebook so if you see anything I post where you say “what is she doing?” It is because I have no clue. That night all three of our appointments fell through so we did more contacting.

Friday we ran to the ocean. It is my ocean. I just love the ocean, Sister Henrie is super scared that I will take off and run into the water. She would tackle me to the ground. She is always keeping an eye on me making sure I am not taking off and jumping in.

In personal study, I studied “Mountains to Climb” from President Eyring. It was awesome. It reminded me of Jake and his “Give me this Mountain” thing. He is my bestie I love him. I am so grateful we get to serve our missions together and we get to build off each other. Except for it is more me building off of him because he’s awesome.

We went to dinner with a member named Clara. She is awesome. She is a returned missionary and is a nurse in the military. I told her I want to be a labor and delivery nurse and she was like “marines are always having babies." I’d totally do that so it is great!

It is kind of hard because we only teach single people 18 - 30 years old so we end up giving people away. That’s ok because we rejoice in bringing people to the gospel.

Saturday we did a whole bunch of contacting and visiting less active members. We also had a ward conference dinner where we learned how to have a happy marriage. Don’t really need that yet but it is good. That is what we get for being in a YSA ward. It was free food.

We visited a less active and knocked at the door just as the pizza guy pulled up so he answered the door thinking we had his pizza. I said, “I know we are not the pizza guy but I guess we are pretty cool too.” He was like ,”Whoa, how did you know I ordered pizza.” I wanted to answer that it was because we just knew because were on the Lord’s errand. It was just funny and he was just laughing.

Sunday: We had ward council and ward conference. The cutest little girl in the lobby of the church while we were waiting for ward council. She poked her mom and said, “Mom those are missionaries!” She treated us like super heroes. It was great.

Then we went contacting a lot.

While we were contacting I climbed a tree. Probably shouldn’t have because I got a few scrapes but I climbed a tree and it was great. It made me happy!

I also found a tree that had tree stars. Shout out to Land Before Time my childhood movie! They just brought me such joy and happiness.

Then we did more contacting, a lot more contacting. I love it. I love where I serve. I love my mission.

My patriarchal blessing it talks about me being able to feel the spirit through music. I have always known this but I have taken that to a whole new level and have been studying the hymns. So, the hymn that I studied this week was “I Know that My Redeemer Lives” This is one of my all time favorite hymns.  I have it all marked and highlighted. It is my favorite thing. This is so cool because we sing it but don’t really think about what we are singing. But just reading this is really comforting. This is my best friend who is in heaven who died for me and loves me. Reading this whole thing - he pleads for me above; he blesses me in my time of need; he hears me; he silences my fears. Reading it instead of just singing it is so powerful. It is just beautiful. I love the fourth verse. It repeats itself. Whenever the scriptures repeat  it means it is important. You will have to do it because I am running out of time.

Love you so much!

Thank you for all you do for me:) I got the package today:):) and my district thinks I'm spoiled:))

Love you!

Love Sista Josie Dalley

Reppin’ Lone Peak in Carlsbad with Sister Cam Ritchie