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