Some Pictures {6.23.14}

Lightning Storms and Lightning Bugs {6.23.14}

...Are two prominent things during Ohio summers!

I LOVE IT.

Just last night we sat on our balcony watching the lightning storm above us and lightning bugs around us. It was magical! We were feeling really nostalgic as well because we knew it would possibly be our last night together.

I was so sick all morning waiting for transfer calls. I cleaned our whole entire apartment! And of course the call was the latest its ever been... almost 12 o clock! And they said........

SISTER FOX AND I ARE BOTH STAYING IN EASTGATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I am serious. I asked them at least 5 times to make sure it wasn't a joke. I am honestly shocked! SO HAPPY, but shocked! This means I will be spending at least 7 months of my mission with Sis. Fox and at least HALF of my mission in Eastgate.... WOW!! That's crazy. My mission has been anything but normal or predictable!

Now, let me tell you about this past week. We were blessed to have 2 mini missionaries! Sister Rupp was only able to be with us until Thursday but we made the most of every minute! I learned so much from her and she is going to be THE BEST missionary. She already is!

Sister Green was with us for the whole week and was also wonderful! She is one of the sweetest girls I've met! Both of them are recent converts to the church and have impressed and inspired me! It was definitely a busy, jam packed, long week but SO GOOD. I honestly don't know if I've ever been as tired as I was last night when it was all over. Nick was definitely right when he told me I didn't know what it meant to be tired until I served a mission! But then I just have to remember this talk...
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1981/10/examples-from-the-life-of-a-prophet?lang=eng&query=are+you+tired

and get back to work!

We were able to accomplish so much though! We taught 35 lessons! Woohoo! There is so much I could tell you and I don't even know where to start so I'm just going to tell you about Sunday because that was my favorite part.

All week we were talking it up and doing everything we could to get everyone to church! And all of our hard work paid off... well, what I should really say is that Heavenly Father definitely blessed us with grace because we did ALL we could do.

Sunday finally rolled around and we could not wait to get to church. We saved multiple rows and paced around until people started showing up. And...

A was able to be there with the Weeks family!!! I almost cried when they all walked in I was so happy. We have been working and praying so hard for A to get to church and everything fell into place perfectly. We also had other investigators and less actives there and were so happy because listen to this program...

Matt Bradley (President Bradley's son) gave his homecoming report after his mission in Hong Kong and bore a powerful testimony in Mandarin!
The youth sang (my personal favorite) the EFY Medley and I bawled.

The one and only President John P. Porter spoke and it was SO powerful. I wished every person we were working with could have been there. I told Sister Fox if I was an investigator I would be getting baptized this week after that sacrament meeting! It was probably the best thing to happen since the church was organized in 1830. Or at least at the top of the list. President Porter talked about all of the blessing we receive as members of the church, like being able to fully access the atonement. That is what seperates us from the world and that is why we share our message with the world. We bring the world hope and direction and a better way of living for their families. The Gospel is a whole new world! A positive one! He also quoted one of the prophets who said the definition for ward is extended family. I love that.

It was exactly what A needed to hear. Both of our As actually. One of them asked for a piece of my notebook paper so she could take notes and even wrote down BoM references she wanted to go home and study. This was a HUGE step in her conversion! After sacrament they both met President individually and both told him they NEEDED us to stay together. He asked if we were lobbying. Our testimonies of prayer have definitely all been strengthened her in Eastgate because we have been praying hard for us to stay together this transfer! People keep telling us they can't imagine us serving with anyone else and it just wouldn't be right to separate us--haha. Sister Fox and I have decided that we can pretty much sum up our missions with each other's names.

Heavenly Father never ceases to amaze me! I love my mission.

I love you.
xoxoxoxo

Sister Rolfe

Pictures:

With the Weeks family at church

Our mini missionaries!

I can't remember what else I attached!

We're having a baby {6.16.14}

It's a girl!!!

We're picking up our baby tonight and will have her for a whole week! :)

Confused yet? Let me fill you in.

They do this cool thing here called mini missions where youth ages 16-19 can spend a week with a full time missionary. They leave behind their car, cell phone, and all that good stuff and are basically a full time greenie! Sister Fox and I found out Saturday night that we would be getting not one but TWO mini missionaries today. Wow! We've actually met one of them. She was just baptized last August in our stake, then went to BYU-I, and is now preparing for her own mission! Yes, she is AMAZING. We could not be more excited to be mission mothers for the week! But please pray for us and our babies because they are both deciding whether they will serve and this could make or break it for them.. no pressure!

As for Sister Fox and I, we have had another adventurous week.

Did I tell you we ate road kill? We ate road kill. It wasn't too bad either. Okay, fine, so it was deer, but it was killed in the road and we ate it. It counts.

Other adventures of the week:

x. I finally had sushi!! Who would have thought it would take coming Ohio to do it? Anyway, I loved it. But it didn't have raw fish in it so that was a tender mercy.
x. We helped two of our favorite families move to Utah :( We were so sad to see them go but I am so excited that I'll get to see them when I get home! We already have plans to meet up at Cafe Rio. Oh and we got some great parenting advice: "You're never going to get it right, and that's okay."

x. Spent more time at the family history center! I also read a great article about the hastening that said "Every good latter day saint in the Spirit World is busy!" Don't you love that? Oh and I ate up the family history stories mom sent me. Send more! Send more! Family members on the Steel side, if you haven't heard Wealthy Eddy's story yet, read it now! You will be so proud to be her descendant.

x. Had TWO exchanges with two wonderful sisters-- Sister Fausett, who sis. fox trained, and Sister Low, who just arrived from Scotland!
x. Saw our Italian investigator and she told us her daughter ate like a porky pig and that memorial day in Italy is more like "month of the dead people" I love her more every time I see her.

We continue to witness miracles and tender mercies every day. I can't believe how quickly the time is passing! Something I've realized this week is how different Latter Day Saints are from the rest of the world. Foxy and I witnessed quite a few instances where people were overcome by the natural man. It wasn't pretty. And it breaks my heart. If only people knew what they could have with the Gospel. That's what I'm here for! I feel so blessed to have been raised in such a loving home and community where the Gospel was always present. We truly are lights in a dark world. Keep shining your lights-- they are brighter and more powerful than you know!

This week I would also highly suggest reading Richard G. Scott's talk,

Living a Life of Peace, Joy and Purpose

It's a game changer.

I love you more than you know!
xoxox
Sister Rolfe

Oh, and just in case you were wondering or had forgotten, I would LOVE to hear from all of you this week! :)

Pictures:

Sister Low!

Sister Bradley and I matched at church :)

Heavenly Father's Fairies {6.9.14}

"Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of Heaven."

-Praise to the Man, Hymn 27
 

This statement is truer than true. Sister Fox and I have been so blessed to have so many people to teach, but have been struggling to help them progress. We have been working so hard and have not been able to figure out what is missing.

 This past week we had leadership council at the mission home and President Porter stressed the importance of sacrifice. He said that the more favorable Heavenly Father makes our circumstances, the more we have to sacrifice to receive His grace. Talk about a lightbulb moment!
 

Heavenly Father has blessed me SO much to be serving in Eastgate with Sister Fox so it's up to me to sacrifice in order to progress and help others progress. That is how we grow after all!

Sister Fox and I knelt in prayer together and received a very strong impression of what we needed to sacrifice.
What you may ask?

Batavia.
 

Let me explain. Sister Fox and I have been given a certain portion of our ward to work in because there are so many missionaries, but since we lived with the Blackhams in the opposite end of the ward we ended up teaching a lot of people over there. Now we actually live in our area so we've been stretched pretty thin running all over the ward to teach all of our investigators. No wonder none of them have been progressing!
 

The next day we met with the other missionaries in our ward, re-established our boundaries, and took a HUGE step of faith by handing over almost all of our investigators-- even the only two who were actually progressing. The moment we did so, I felt a burden lift from my shoulders and knew that we had followed Heavenly Father's will.
 

The rest of the week was literally miracle after miracle!! The biggest of them all though was Amber and Charlie deciding to be baptized this month!!! I am in missionary heaven. Other miracles?
 

-We reached (and actually exceeded) all of our goals!

- We had SIX investigators at church (last week we had none)

- We found 13 new investigators!

- A brother in our ward who was a mission president (and really intimdates me) told us we are "Beams of light!" I could have died happy in that moment.

- One of our investigators (Hilary Week's bff) left us a voicemail calling us Heavenly Father's Fairies :)

- We had an AWESOME exchange with the Cherry Grove Sisters

I could go on! Basically as a missionary you want 3 things,

-Unity (companionship, district, zone)

-To help people come unto Christ (move to the next ordinance)

-Trust/good relationships with the ward

And right now we have all 3 :) I love Sister Fox. I love our Zone. I love our Ward--especially our phenomenal ward council! I have such a strong testimony that Heavenly Father will bless us as we make sacrifices. It is after the trial of our faith that we receive a witness!
 

“The greatest decision I ever made in my life was to give up something I dearly loved to the God I loved even more. He has never forgotten me for it.” ^{2  -President Monson}
 

^{Let us all press on in the work of the Lord and be the beam of light that our dear brothers and sisters so desperately need.}

^{xoxo
Sister Rolfe}

 

 

 

 

Did You Know? {6.2.14}

This week I have decided to tell you about a few exciting things you may or may not know missionaries do (or at least I have done in the past 6 days)

x. MULCH!! These Ohio folk are crazy about their mulch. I guess we don't really have much use for it in Southern Utah so I haven't been very exposed to it, but I have mulched 2 yards and a photography studio just this week. What can I say--I love to landscape!

x. Family History! Our churchhouse has a family history center-- happy day! We were able to use it this week with one of our investigators and it was awesome. She actually found out a lot about her family and LOVED IT. I'm on a family history kick and loved it too! Later in the week she had dinner with us at a member's home and we had a great discussion about why we do family history.

familysearch.org

check it out!
**sidenote: we also mulched her yard this week :)

x. Bake/frost hundreds of cupcakes! A couple who actually both grew up in our ward had their wedding reception this week! We got to help get prepare the refreshments.. and taste test. YUM! If you want your missionaries to love you... ask them to bake with you!

x. Listen to love stories. We probably ask every person we meet. We've actually started marriage advice journals. I'm pretty sure I know more about marriage than if I had actually spent the past year married. Also feel free to tell the missionaries your love story. At least the sister missionaries :)

x. Go to weddings! Literally one of the most beautiful I've been too. I love weddings.

No, I'm not trunky. I just love being reminded why we are here on this Earth-- to become eternal families!

x. Hold frogs, chicks, and other small animals and reptiles. I found the frog mulching..

x. Teach the friends of famous Mormons. Yes, Hilary Week's BFF is still one of my favorite people yet. She bakes for us out of the Mormon Moms cookbook and I just can't get enough of her.

Cool story! This week she was working out at the Y. One lady came up to her and mentioned that she had heard her talking about the Book of Mormon and that she was a Mormon! They had a great chat. Another woman approached her later and commented on her Time Out for Women bag (she went to hear Hilary). They also had a great conversation! Neither of these women knew she is investigating the church nor did they know the positive impression they made on her. Don't be afraid to talk about the Gospel!! I promise you will be blessed. I just can't agree with Clayton Christensen enough, the power of every day missionaries is real.

x. Be offered an alcoholic beverage. This hasn't' happened to me too much on my mission, but actually happened a couple times this week. It was a great opportunity to share my beliefs! :)

x. Did you know missionaries are basically on call from 9-9? Yep, we are at your beck and call. This week we got a call from a member telling us to hurry over to their house because they had a friend over who was interested in the Gospel. The Book of Mormon had come up casually in conversation and their friend showed interest so they acted and invited us over! We came right away (I promise if you do this, missionaries will literally drop anything else they are doing) and answered his questions. We're teaching him again tonight!

x. Talk to nuns. We meet one of the sweetest girls I have ever met in my life this week. She is entering a convent next week, but we are meeting with her until then!

x. We are the life of dinner parties! Invite us over and we won't be pushy or awkward.. we'll just talk to your friends and make them feel really loved :)

x. Teach people in the pouring rain. We're like the postal service except probably go out in even more intense weather.

Hopefully you can see that missionaries basically do it all and Elder Russell M. Nelson was not joking when he counseled,

"Ask the missionaries, they can help you!"

I also hope you noticed how much of our work includes the members. Missionaries are here to help members with their missionary work-- not the other way around! Put them to work! :)

I love you all! Have a wonderful missionary work and share your stories with me!
xoxo
Sister Rolfe