CHRISTMAS!!

Holy crap, last week was insane. We had our mission Christmas party, mission temple trip, Anthony and Jacobs baptism, temple lights, Christmas, and our zone party. All in 1 week! I'm so tired haha

     The mission Christmas party was so crazy! We did minute to win it games and I have never seen anything more terrifying. Everyone's competitive side came out and I thought someone was going to die hahah! Then President and Sister Wheeler did a zone conference on Luke 2 and it was sooooooooo good! Then we did the balloon launch! It was so pretty! The whole thing was from 2:30 to 8:30 

     The temple trip was so awesome too! The conductor guy for our session was just crying bc he loved seeing all of us missionaries there...there was like 50 of us in that session, it was awesome! And we also took mission pics in front of the temple so I'm excited to get those! 

     ANTHONY AND JACOB GOT BAPTIZED ON FRIDAY! It was so freaking awesome! Their baptisms we completely different. Anthony didn't have that many people there, but you could feel the spirit so strong! Anthony is one of the few people where I can't really see his emotions, so we were kind of nervous if he was getting baptized for the right reasons or whatever, but after he got baptized, Nate invited Jack and Anthony to come up and bare their testimonies, and Anthony's was short, but so sincere, and you could tell he knew this church is true, and it was amazing. Sis Preston and I both were tearing up lol. Jack's testimony was good too! He just bragged about how good of teachers sis Preston and I are hahaha he's funny.  Jacobs baptism was so awesome too! he had tons of people there and lots of non members that he invited from school, and his family wasn't going to come but they ended up coming at the last minute and it was really awesome for them to see their son get baptized!! Then on Sunday, Christmas Eve they both got confirmed and it was so awesome!!! Everyone loves them and is being their friend and stuff, we have a super good ysa ward! I used to be SO against ysa (young single adult) .. but the Lexington ysa ward is where it's at!

     Christmas Eve we got to work our last shift of the Mesa Temple Lights! It was so awesome! I LOVE that place...we got lucky we are working the lights this year bc for the next 2 years the Mesa temple is going to be shut down bc they are renovating it☹ we met some awesome peeps that night that want to learn more about the gospel! I love when people have open hearts and accept the truth! 

     Christmas was bomb...we Skyped the fam! It was so good to see them and Jay! There all the same crazy family I left, so I'm excited to see them in a few weeks! We had to be in by like 5:30 to 6 so we did zone sports and watch Moana! I LOVE that movie! It came out RIGHT after I left, so I was super pumped to see it! But dude, the crab part, when he's singing, is sketch...scared the crap outa me. But it's so funny bc I have a mission brain and the whole time I was watching it I was relating it to the gospel hahahaha! I was like ohp, there's the apostasy...oh, there's the advisary...oh good, here comes the Atonement! 

  Okay well this email is way too long...if I saw this long of an email I probs wouldn't want to read it, so I'm done hahah

     Sister Bischoff

Proud Mom

Honestly, this week was insane. I don't even remember much about it lol. All I know is somehow we became a trio and there's only 7 days till Christmas.

     Jacob and Anthony are doing awesome! They are both getting baptized on Friday! I seriously just love them both, they are so presh. Honestly I feel like they are my children. Both of them went to church yesterday, but we had to leave early, and y'all, I was stressin! I was trying to make sure peeps in the ysa would sit with them and help them out, I felt like we just dropped them off at school or something for the first time and I was the emotional mom that worries about everything! Literally after we left i made sis preston say a prayer while i was driving so i could feel better lol! I just found out that they were 18 and 19, I swear I thought they were older...maybe it's bc I feel like I'm still 18, and everyone should be older than me in ysa hahaha!

     Yesterday we had our Christmas choir concert! It was so awesome! But it's super sad it's over...no more practices on Thursdays I saw all my homies from my greenie area! I'm super happy I get another Christmas on the mission! Yeah it's sad I'm not with the fam, but duuuuude Christmas here on the mission is sooooooo amazing! Today we have our mission Christmas party! I have no idea what we are even doing, but I will take lots of pics so y'all can see! 

     But anyways, sorry this email is lame..i seriously forgot what happened, I'm sure I wrote something in my journal🤥

     sister bischoff

Boe

This week was so fast and slow at the same time. It was so weird. Sisters Marbery and Johnson went home Tuesday.  It was tripping me out because Sister Marbery and I were in the MTC together, and now she's just home, like what the heck, ill be in her same spot pretty soon. It was really sad though. When you go home you just kind of get kicked out of the mission , so im not really looking forward to that one... But other than that its been a good week! 

     We got to work the Mesa Temple Lights again! I love that place. There's crazy people everywhere over there... This time we actually got a couple people who were interested in learning more about the gospel! We were so excited!! And I saw Jamie Anderson and her fam from my greenie area! They all grew up so much! It's been a year since I've seen them! They were freaking out knowing how long I've been out because she was the one that picked me up my FIRST day in the mission! So crazy!!

     The other day President Allen had our whole zone over for breakfast! They are so awesome! We did a service project with them to help this family that is going through a lot, the mom just adopted a BUNCH of special needs kids (she has 10 kids) and after she just found out that she has cancer ): so it's been pretty rough for them, so we wrapped a bunch of Christmas gifts for them! The elders were getting into it man, literally they did a better wrapping job than I did. Like honestly, it took elder Tolman maybe 15 min to wrap one present bc he needed it to be perfect, I was loling

     We picked up a new investigator!!! They just moved in and have studied a lot about religion and hasn't learned a ton about Mormons and the Book of Mormon so she really wants to learn! We are sooooooooo excited to teach her! 

     Yall, I'm literally the happiest person right now because Sister Ogawa is in my zone and she's comps with Sister Sperry!!!! It's the best thing ever. Every time we see each other we flip out. You know when 2 little girls are best friends, and they haven't seen each other in a quick sec, and when they finally see each other, they just hold each others hands and jump around and scream? Yeah that's us...every time we see each other hahah it's so funny! We're pretty excited we will be together for Christmas! 

     The other day this lady in our ward fed us and sisters Sperry and ogawa and it was the best thing ever. Her kids were insane, it was SO funny! Her youngest, Boe is the best thing ever. Hes like 5. He HAD to sit in between sis Preston and I  but one of her son's was saying the prayer over the food and it was a funny prayer so i was kind of laughing to myself, and Boe saw me laughing so he just busted up laughing, so I look over at him and he's just dying, and after the prayer they were like what were you laughing at!? And he was like me and sister B were staring at eachother!!! And I was like omg, I'm the missionary  and I'm over here setting a bad example lolol it's all good tho, it was a super chill family. This kid literally thought sister Ogawa was 53! I was cryingggg it was SO funny! Then yesterday at church he comes over trying to be reverent with his arms folded and everything (so cute) because he REALLY wanted to sit with us haha it was precious today we are going to their house to play freeze tag, bc we couldn't the night we had dinner with them bc we had to go to work the temple lights, so I'll get pics of him!

sister Bischoff 

TRANSFERS

Holy crap transfer calls happened. I was so curious to see what the heck president was going to do, because I have one more transfer left after this one. And I have already been here for 2. But I'm staying and hopefully I'll stay next transfer so I can die in this area! But will I have sister Preston for a third transfer, or get a new comp my last transfer? I don't even know, but it's all good! I'm soooooooo happy I'm staying with sis Preston and staying in this area! 

     So at the YSA stake conference yesterday there were TONS of peeps there and I saw all my homies from the last YSA ward I served in and it was SO fun! But after it was over someone was like hey sisters, do you know a sister....and he saw my nametag and he was like Oh! You're sister Bischoff! He was like duuuude I just got home from my mission on Thursday and I served with your brother and went on splits and exchanges with him all the time!! Y'all I was freeeeaking out! So we took pics to send to Jay! I was SO happy haha! 

     So we had do to a training on Tuesday for the zone on the last how to begin teaching point for like 15 min, and right when it was about to be our time to go up, the freaking ap's walk in. Literally I was going to die, like what the heck. But it's all good, thank goodness I don't have anxiety anymore and I didn't really care they were there, I just knew they were straight judging us hahaha jk we actually did pretty good. We made them rollplay most of the time lol.

     We taught the plan of salvation to the Quintannas! The kids lovvveed it! The mom even cried at one point when we were talking about families, you could feel the spirit so strong and I knew they could feel it! I just want them to get baptized so bad!

     Temple lights was so fun! For some reason everyone was asking what my ethnicity was that night...it was so weird. One of them was this guy who had mental disabilities, he's like maybe 20 something, but he was freaking out because he totally remembered me from last year working the temple lights! He's sooo sweet! And he was hilarious! We were like do you like your church? And he would have a discusted look and shake his head no, and he did that to everything we asked him about, it was so funny, like he didn't like anything. But then another guy asked me who was helping with the temple lights, he was like, so excited that I was half black half white bc he has little grandkids who are mixed too. Every one is always surprised when I tell them what I am, bc they ALWAYS think I'm Polynesian, which I'm okay with. But anyways he found out that I want to go into dental hygiene and he was so excited about that too, so he gave me his number and wants me to contact him bc he works in that field. And he's hecka loaded, and wants us to call him if we need anything financially, haha he was crack up.

     Nothing else this week that I can remember, az goes crazy with Christmas, so we took some pics and vids, so it's been fun seeing all that! 21 DAYS TILL SKYPING/CHRISTMAS

Sister Bischoff

 

Gators and temple lights!

Okay, I love being a missionary. It's so funny because sometimes I just get super annoyed and want to just come home, but once you see miracles happen and help others receive the restored gospel, you never want to leave. Like the other day the stls told us they want us to give a training on Tuesday for greenie meeting and we were kinda salty bc we just didn't want to deal with all that, but then throughout this week we have just seen so many miracles and we have been SO happy to do missionary work. 

     So on like tuesday we decided we wanted to bike so we could talk to more peeps outside, so it's the first day this transfer we biked and we stopped to talk to this one guy and we were just chatting with him and he's SO awesome and loves church and stuff, so we testified of the restoration and asked if he wanted to learn more and take the lessons and he said YES! Yall...like literally this never happens. I have never street contacted someone and have them be so open and just say yes to taking the lessons!  Usually people look at you crazy and say no, but nice enough to say we could come back for water. So we are SO excited to teach him! And you could just tell that God has been preparing him to hear this message! He was so humble and willing to learn. I love people like that! He's going on a camping trip and won't be back until next week, so we are crossing our fingers he is still interested!!

     Also, we got 2 referrals and they are BOTH on date to be baptized! They are both in our ysa ward and so flippin solid! Anthony is on date for Dec 22 and Jacob is on date for Dec 23! We are thinking we can help deven and Bill get on date for Dec too! Jacob is a referral from a different mission and has a girlfriend on a mission. His family is NOT happy he is getting baptized, but he said he knows the book of Mormon is true, and he knows he needs to be baptized! He's so excited! Anthony is awesome too! We just had a lesson with him last night after church with his friend Jack! They have a college class together! Okay Jack is seriously so awesome! He's 17 almost 18 preparing for a mission. At the end of the lesson we invited Anthony to be baptized and he said yes! Then Jack was so excited because he told us his story of how for some reason he dropped out his senior year and did homeschooling, and he has NO idea why even did that, and how much crap he's getting from his friends and how it's been really hard for him, bc senior year is the best year...but he was able to take some college classes and that's how he met Anthony and he invited him to take the lessons again, and he said if this is the reason he dropped out his senior year and did homeschooling to be able to go to college and meet Anthony and help him get baptized and learn more about the gospel, it's totally worth it! He said he doesn't even care what people think or anything. He said he just feels so comforted that he followed the promptings and was able to help Anthony! They seriously are both so awesome! And he's sooooo ready for a mission and is so pumped and he said he has tons of people that are interested that he wants us to Teach! They both just melt my heart. They are so sweet and just good people and I'm glad I get to know them! It's crazy to think if I never served a mission I never would have met them! 

Saturday we got to work the Mesa temple lights! It was sooooo fun! I was freaking out though because I did this a year ago. I can't believe I've actually been on my mission for more than a year...like sweet Moses, we all know it's a miracle I'm even on a mission! It was so fun and it's so fun to talk to people! There was this one squad of old ladies trying to take a pic and I asked if I could take their pic so they could all be in it and this savage lady was like "no! I actuly need to to just get out of my way!" So I was like sweet, can do, so I moved and they were struggling hard core to take this pic, so finally they asked me to take their pic, and right before I took it the oldest lady in the wheelchair was like "now honey, I have a missing front tooth, and I need you to not get that in the picture " and I was like uhhhhh okay but the only way I will be able to do that is if you just shut your mouth...but I didn't say that bc I didn't know how to not sound savage. But anyways we took their pics and ended up talking to them for like 30 minutes and they were awesome! They loved that we were missionaries, but they weren't interested, but it's okay because they were crack up! 

Thanksgiving was lit. Some members took us to cracker barrel.  We saw some crazy people at that place. And scary people..i couldn't tell if people thought it was still Halloween or what, but it's okay haha oh and some lady passed out and they had the ambulance come and put her on a freaking stretcher and everyone was flippin out and people were crying. it was kinda extra, but whatevs. Okay this email is way to long. Love y'all! 

Sister Bischoff

Oh and also, the crazy people I live with made me bike with them to the flippin temple....which is like a 15-20 min car ride. I'm dead.

Grandma and grandpa New Zealand

This week was awesome! We had a ton going on! So  Tuesday was so cool because after Interviews with president and greenie/district meeting we went to lunch with sister Prestons grandparents from New Zealand! They took us to Olive garden and it was sooooo good! Her grandpa is hilarious and talks to EVERYONE about the gospel!!! Like we saw him as they were driving away and he had his head out the window yelling across the street to some random girls. But we talked to the waiter guy that was helping us and we got his number and he's cool with missionaries coming to his house! Then he told us that he just loves Mormon people because they are all so kind, and he was just so happy...it was so Sweet! But her grandparents really want to hook me up with someone when I get home hahah so they want me to email them! Hopefully someone from New Zealand  oh also...something crazy!! So her grandparents served in Albania and they were showing us pics with missionaries...and they showed us this one pic and I was like wait....no way...that's Natalie Olsen!!!! And they were like omggg how do you know her?!? So that was a pretty cool connection! 

     Friday we had a lesson with Deven! He seriously cracks me up! God was really helping me out with this lesson-- like last week because I wanted to laugh SO bad! Homeboy had a freaking hole in the crotch of his pants. Sis preston and i saw it at the same time and we looked at each other, and literally it's a miracle we didn't laugh.... but it was a really good lesson! We read the Book of Mormon with him and next lesson we are going to put him on date!! We're super pumped! 

     We had FHA at the Asburys for their last time on their mission and it was SO fun! They made us soup with bread bowls, and we played apples to apples...which was dumb, and then animal noises...and like always I sound like an idiot and they can guess it was me

     Saturday we had exchanges! And also the APs decided we needed a mini missionary that day, so sister Johnson and I had a mini with us on our exchanges! It was a good day! We talked to some crazy funny people...and had tons of awkward moments omg... But its okay...awkward and onward.

Today we are having a zone nerf war...so that will be interesting...ill take some pics or something lol

sister Bischoff

The Struggle.....

Y'all I'm so glad I have an awesome companion! The weeks just go by so much faster because we have SO MUCH FUN! Like I swear everyday we are crying because we are laughing so hard!   We both have a laughing problem, and it's super unfortunate sometimes....like Devens lesson...omgosh y'all it was soooo bad!

So we had a lesson with Deven (ysa ward) at the church thursday and we go in this room and start it off, and all 3 of us were sick and had allergies, so we all just sounded horrible, and deven kept complaining about how dry his throat was, so sister Preston gave him a cough drop and yoooo he was chompin on that thing and choking on it like nobody's business and we thought it was SO funny! He's just such an awkward funny kid. But we were trying to not let him know we were laughing at him...because that's bad...but it was SO hard trying not to laugh because I could hear her and she could hear me laughing and it was just bad...but the good thing was, was that for some reason he had his eyes closed for almost the whole lesson...so he didn't even see us laughing...until later and he was like uhhh...so the only thing that I could think of was "oh man, sorry we aren't laughing at you, I just have to go to the bathroom!!" So we just run to the bathroom because we were laughing so hard and we just had to get out of there before it got worse. And we laughed for like 3 min in there and said a prayer that we could get through the rest of the lesson...bc we were only like 5 min into the lesson. And y'all I swear prayer works! There were plenty more times that I would have died in there but somehow I didn't. And we ended up actually having a really good lesson with him about the restoration and resolved some of his concerns about the book of Mormon!

Tuesday we had zone conference...this was probably the saddest one. At the end of zone conference the missionaries that leave at the end of the transfer bare their testimony and ALL the senior missionaries like the Ashtons, Partridges and the Hatches are done with their missions now. They bore their testimonies and omgosh it was just so sad for them to go.  But zone conference was SOOO good! President is amazing and is so smart in the gospel so it's so cool to hear what he had to say! 

So Wed we had a lesson with the family I was talking about last week! The kids are SO precious! It was pretty heartbreaking to teach them because we would ask them who God and Jesus Christ were and they had no idea, but it was cool to teach about Them, and the kids were just SO excited! We taught them the restoration and they were loving it. 

Friday was probably the best day last week because we had our Mesa temple lights training!!! Dude I'm so excited to get to work the temple lights again! I'm glad I'm on whoever's good side in the Mesa mission because not everyone gets to do this twice on their mission! It was crazy though because the training was from  1:30to 4... it was soooo long! 

Yesterday at church was so awesome! The Lakeview Trails relief society wanted us to give a training on how members can help the missionaries! Then we went to our YSA break the fast thing and hahaha that place is so awkward. I need to make a cautious effort to make sure our nametags are showing, because dudes will come sit by us thinking were normal humans and flirt with us....and I'm like okay what the heck are you doing dude? Then I realize our hair is covering our nametags. So we flip our hair back and it's sooo funny to see their reaction when they see we are missionaries! Ah man it's so funny. This YSA ward is actually pretty chill, I like it WAY better than my last ysa I was over...or any ysa in Utah. I swear all the ysa wards in Utah are full of greasy suckers, and I'm not about that life.

Anyways, I can't believe next transfer is Christmas and I'll be skyping the fam, and then I'll basically be going home after that haha, so weird.

sister bischoff

Christmas and Cafe Freeo

Y'all we already set up for Christmas! Our house is decked out! Also, the other day sister Preston and I got the text that we get to work the Mesa temple lights!! Seriously we are SO lucky because they only chose like 6 companionship out of our whole mission! I've been pretty lucky on my mission with getting chosen to do fun stuff like this all the time...Im soooo excited! It's crazy to think I did this last year! I feel like that was only 5 months ago... also I'm freaking out because Christmas is next transfer...

We have been seeing SO many miracles! People are actually letting us in and letting us teach them! We have a BUNCH of set appointments this week with some solid potential gators! There is a super cool fam that we found and they want us to teach them and the kids! The other day she told us that her little son is getting made fun of because he doesn't believe in God, and she's sad about that so she's pretty excited for us to teach them! 

Also we met this super chill family, they aren't members but she somehow knew missionaries can't talk to their fam everyday so she took a pic of us and sent it to our mom's! Never had a random non member want to take a pic of me and send it to my mom Lol! But they said we could come back to teach them! Then we knocked on this one dudes house and he was like...okay...missionaries always come to my house.. What are y'all trying to do?? And we were like...uhhhhh teach you that Christ's true church has been restored and that we want you to have the blessings of the fullness of the gospel...and he just kinda looked at us and was like....okay...come back Tuesday at 4 and we will listen to you. And we were like okay dope, see ya Tuesday! So were pretty excited about that

     Halloween was super fun! We went to cafe Rio (freeo) because I swear my mission blessing is whenever I go there I get paid for...sister Preston didn't believe me so were in line and we are at the register to pay and no one was coming to pay and she was like she man no one is gonna pay for us! And I was like dude...have faith... and when the lady told us the total a guy ran up to us and told the lady he wanted to pay for all 4 of us! #blessings. Never paid for cafe freeo my whole mission.  Then we went to the temple as a mission and it was SO awesome! We had president and sister wheeler in our group! Then we went home and some other sisters slept over at our house and we played random games the rest of the night! 

Love

-sister Bischoff

NON STOP!!!

This week was non stop omgosh. So Tuesday night I got a call from president saying I'm training a brand new missionary! I was super excited! 

Wednesday- I had to be at the transfer building at flippin 8:30 am to get some training on how to train lol. Then all the trainers got paired with their greenies (brand new missionaries) and I got the most FLAWLESS one there! Everyone calls us cinderella and Tianna Her name is Sister Preston and she's from Ogden UT but lived in New Zealand for most of the time! Also she's bringing in hecka miracles. 

We took elder Schmidt and Reeds ysa ward (young single adult) and that means we also took their car and they are SO salty! It's hilarious. 

Then we had a pass off lesson with those elders with an investigator in the ysa ward! His name is devin and he's pretty interesting!!  The elders gave us a background on Him before the lesson and told us they are trying to figure out his concern on the book of Mormon, and literally in .2 seconds into the lesson we already knew what his concern was about the book of Mormon... We were like geez, good thing the elders had to pass him on to us jk jk that's savage.

Thursday- we had a GIANT fall festival for a bunch of neighborhoods and it was the whole zones area so we all got to go and help out and it was SO fun! Sister Preston and I were in charge of a hungry hippo bounce house game thing...so basically the whole time we just yelled at kids lol. Then this random little black kid was tryna get us to dance for him, but we ended up getting him to dance for us instead and I was soooooo weak! I got a vid of it for anyone who wants to see it.

Friday- we had a potential investigator text us and he's interested in learning More! He's pretty funny, I have a screenshot of our convo! But we are excited to teach him!!! 

Saturday- so we went to a car show! The whole time I was like lol Bryce will be so jealous. It was so fun tho! Then our whole zone walked forever to panda and we had to cross all the big streets and everyone and their mom was honking at us and it was this big ordeal and we get there and no one had any freaking money lol. We are so stupid. But elder morrill is a homie and bought everyone some panda then we had a bunch of ward fall festivals and parties and the members sent us with a load of food and stuff!!  🏽. 

Sunday- we went to our ysa bishops house for ward council/breakfast and they were all super excited to have sisters! And then we went to the ward and there was a bunch of people I knew in that ward! Like this random girl I met at a cafe place in my last area one time who's preparing for a mission! Then we went to cornerstone ward and they had a primary program and y'all omgosh I was crying I was laughing so hard! There was this one lady who wouldn't let the kids in her group talk, she just did it for them and she was doing it in a hecka weird voice and sister preston and i just lost it. We were dyinggg. We seriously couldn't stop laughing..it was so bad. 

Today- got my ultrasound...they wouldn't tell me anything...so we shall see. Hopefully they can tell me what is wrong with my stomach!!

My new zone calling is the p day activity coordinator so today was lit-- we played volleyball and some members brought us like 5 boxes of pizza, a bunch of cookies and salad and stuff! It was super fun! We are super excited for tomorrow because we are going out to dinner with the other sisters...probs cafe Freeo (Rio)  someone always pays for us there(#spoiled) , then as a zone we are going to the temple at 5:30 and then the other sisters are sleeping at our house again and we are going to have a fire outside and carve pumpkins! YAY

Sorry this email is long, I'm just making up for the crappy emails I've been sending!

-sister bischoff