Temples, exchanges, tripanionships... Oh my

Oh my goodness gracious what a crazy amazing week. Tuesday to Wednesday we went on exchanges. Thursday we got another Sister for a couple of days and then Saturday we went to the temple!

Exchanges was so fun. I stayed in Milford with sister Crystal so I had to take over the area which I was super nervous about but it all went perfect. Okay not perfect because we are missionaries but it was great. Sister Crystal and I knocked some doors and one girl yelled at us and no one else answered so pretty good afternoon. 

Thursday we drove up to Kutztown to pick up Sister Kuta. Sister Kuta was in my district in the MTC (she is also in my district here) and she is awesome. She is in a tripanionship right now but her companions are Priesthood Restoration site sisters and they had a training till Saturday. We had a blast with Sister Kuta! Tripanionships are definitely just a party while teaching the gospel. We did teach Peter and Lucille with Sister Kuta and that was just another awesome lesson. We read Enos with them and talked about how we need to pray and listen for the Holy Ghost to give them an answer. Both Peter and Lucille have really amazing experiences with prayer and their faith growing because their prayers have been answered. We are very excited to continue teaching them and helping them gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon. Speaking of the Book of Mormon I have not gotten any emails about anyone's thoughts or experiences. But I hear that Elder J-Crotts has so I'm just a little hurt. I guess you all are just busy to read the word of God. 

On Saturday we got to go to the temple with the Stallettis! Brother Stalletti was baptized December 4 and Sister Stalletti has been a member her whole life. There wasn't enough room for us missionaries to do baptisms as well but having the opportunity to watch them was amazing. Seeing Brother and Sister Stalletti sitting next to eachother in white was the best thing I have seen since I have been out. Sister Cragun and I were visiting with Sister Nuneviller later that night and she asked us if it hurts when people slam the doors in our faces or politely decline to hear about Jesus Christ. I said yes it hurts but when you see someone in the temple for the first time, even if it is just for baptisms, it's all worth it. 

Being a missionary, a representative of Jesus Christ, has been the best and most rewarding part of my life. I love hearing other's experiences with Christ and helping them strengthen their testimony with the Book of Mormon. Please please please read the Book of Mormon. I love and miss you all!

Lots of Love!

Sister Van Buskirk

Matte (Lindsey I was thinking about you and how much I hated this the first time)

 Matte is gross

 I hate matte so much

 Brother Fuentes and I before the matte

 Sister Cragun, Burrell, Crystal, and Van Buskirk after exchanges

 Brother and Sister Stalletti, Sister Boyd (Sister Stalletti's mom), Sister Van Buskirk, Sister Cragun, Sister Kuta

Polaroids are the coolest

Me and Sister Nuneviller. We love her the most but don't tell anyone. 

We are hipsters, sorry about it. 

Tripanionship or party?

60° and people are wearing shorts. Are they insane?

Fantastic week here in good ole Milford, PA. So exciting news. We met with one of our recent converts last Monday and we set a date for him and his wife and us to go to the temple to do baptisms! We are going this Saturday so I'm pumped! 

Tuesday-  Valentine's day. We had district meeting and we made the other sisters in our district Valentine's because we are the best missionaries. After district meeting we went to visit a couple in the branch. She has a lot of health problems and so he takes care of her all day. So we went over to visit since they don't see very many people except for at church. Then we had dinner with the Fuentes. We LOVE the Fuentes. First, Brother Fuentes saved us from the guy that followed us for like 5 miles like my 4th day in the field (if you have any questions ask my mom- Casey Van Buskirk. She would be happy to help). Second, Brother Fuentes is Chilean and Sister Fuentes went Chile on her mission so they make really good South American food. Third, they made us Cafe Rio for Valentine's day. Complete with cilantro lime dressing. Do you need any more Reasons? 

Wednesday- We were supposed to have our Book of Mormon study but once again no one showed up... I don't really remember what else happened. 

Thursday- We went to see one of our Less Actives. Sister Key is so funny. We make her little charts and give her scriptures to read she just never does it. She has the desire we are just working on building her faith now so I can make that desire into action. Then we went to dinner with the Johnsons. Brother Johnson is our branch mission leader. He investigated the church for 4 years. But during that time people forgot he wasn't a member anymore so he gave talks and held a calling. That's what happens when you live in a branch haha. Sister Johnson is so funny. Her and Sister Cragun made a deal that if Sister Cragun gets married by November 19, 2019 Sister Johnson has to come. I said "why don't you just get married in Philly? That would make it easy for the whole branch to go." Sister Cragun said no it has to be in Utah. She's funny. 

Friday- We had interviews with President Randall! Have I mentioned before how much I love President Randall? Well he's the best mission president ever. Also, if anyone has been on a mission the past couple of years and has seen The District videos, he helped with those because he is that cool. Anyways after that we just knocked doors for like 2 straight hours. The only people we talked to were these two 20 year Olds named Kale and Ian. Yes that is right. Kale. No typo. They talked to us for about 15 minutes and we gave them our number but they weren't too interested. They weren't from our area anyway. 

Saturday- We did service at a less actives house. We are helping her clean and organized her basement. Sister Kinney is so nice. She feels so embaressed because she thinks her basement is a mess. We are like this is way cleaner than most people's actually houses. You are fine. We are going back on Friday to keep helping her. We went knocking later and no one wanted to talk to us. Literally no one. We got in the car and as we were driving out of the neighborhood we looked at each other and were like maybe we shouldn't leave. So we just drove down the street and got out and started knocking again. Still no luck. Then we knocked on Peter's door. At first Peter was like there are no more prophets. There can be no more prophets. But then we showed him Amos 3:7 (look it up. It's a good one.) And he was like yeah but "John Smith" wrote your bible. We were like no no sir. The Book of Mormon testifies of Christ. Let me show you. Then we read Mosiah 16:9 (also another goodie) He was like hmm okay. Then we asked if he would like to read the Book of Mormon and he said sure and we are meeting with him later today so what I am saying is miracles.

Sunday- Speaking of miracles listen to this one. In Branch Council President Adams told us about a mom that is moving in soon that needs food, furniture, etc.  Later we went knocking and Sister Cragun was like I think we need to go down this one street that I have noticed before but we have never knocked. I said okay and as we were walking on that street I look across the street and there is a (used) nice leather couch set. Immediately i thought about that lady. I was like Sister Cragun we need to call President Adams and tell him to pick this up right now. So we both followed the spirit and were able to help that lady get some furniture. We just love how miracles come and how if we are both in tune to the spirit those miracles will come. 

I hope you all are reading Jeremy Crott's email because he committed you all to read the Book of Mormon. I just want to say you all are now being held accountable to 2 missionaries. I want you all to send me what you learn/find interesting/ have questions about to me too. Thanks I love you all! Don't forget to pray and that Jesus Christ is your Savior. Have a great week! 

Lots of Love!

Sister Van Buskirk

Sister Cragun begged for Valentine's in her email a couple weeks ago so someone actually sent us some lol

 I love PA

Building snowmen is service

Things are pretty slow here in Milford. We were only able to meet with Shayne once this week because she has been really busy. We moved her date to March but it's okay because at first she suggested April but then she decided on March 26 which was exciting. Sister Cragun and I didn't even say anything. She didnt come to church though which was really disappointing. We got a text from her last minute saying goes she was really busy with her business and such. Hopefully we will see her tomorrow and maybe again later this week. We have lost contact with a couple of our investigators. They seemed interested in our last lesson but we haven't been able to reach them at all. We are going to go stop by this week if we can. It's just hard to do that because they work during the day. We gave a bible and a Book of Mormon to a lady this week though. She doesn't really believe in God but she hasn't had much exposure to religion so that's understandable. But she said she would read the Bible and the Book of Mormon and we can come back in a month. 

Friday was the branch Valentine's Day activity and so we went. It was fun. Not a lot of people showed up which is okay since it was announced last minute and the building we are in is super far for the members to drive to. 

It snowed Wednesday night so Thursday morning we weren't allowed to use our cars but it was fine because we had to do our weekly planning anyway. We decided to go to the Cubbage's and see if we could shovel their driveway on Friday because I have never shoveled snow before and I wanted to try it out. Sister Cubbage said no because they don't care and if they did they have 2 boys to shovel for them. She said you girls go out and build me a nice snowman. So we did. Her daughter Marissa came with us. Marissa is like 20 and she's in collage. We met her when she was home for Christmas and we love her a lot. She was home this weekend for stuff I guess and so she taught us how to build a cute snowman! 

We also had zone conference on Wednesday and to prepare we had to write a 3 minute talk on baptism for our investigators and ourselves. Well guess who was asked to give theirs? Yeah you're right, Sister Van Buskirk... Why do they think I need to do stuff like that? Ugh, oh well I'll get used to it. It probably won't be the last time I do something like that. 

Well not a super inspiring week but that happens sometimes. We just have to remember it's all in the Lord's timing and according to His will. Hopefully this week will be better. This is still the best mission in the world! 

Lots of Love!

Sister Van Buskirk

I shined my shoes Mom! Aren't you so Proud!

The fog is real in PA

I LOVE SISTER SUMMERS

Wawa is this sandwich place that all the missionaries are obsessed with but there isn't anywhere it eat it in the place because it's a gas station. And we can't eat in our cars so we ate it in the freezing, windy, cold and it was delicious.

Zone Training

   

Milford Branch activity

Sister Cragun is always like that 

Always

Us shoveling. Sister Cubbage said we could do the path even though it was already done...

Marissa, Sister Cragun, me, and our snow bride

 Raylenn, our less-actives granddaughter who always wears that green swimsuit and calls us Amber.  

 The night I found out Hannah was going to Guam and Sister Cragun got an email from her best friend or something. 

Didn't I tell you sister Cragun is always like that. 

Waiting for your investigator at church is like waiting for your date to pick you up...

Well it's still cold here in PA but no snow so there's no point in coldness I think. I was looking at the weather and Tucson was in the 70s this week... It's okay I'm not bitter...mostly. 

Tuesday we went and visited with some less actives. We just stopped by which is sometimes the only way we can get them to talk to us. 

Wednesday was a great day because we had not one but 2 lessons with Shayne! We had a lesson scheduled for that morning and it was such a good lesson. We talked a lot about the repentance process and baptism and why we are baptized. She said that every time she prays about what we are teaching her she gets a peace and a calm feeling. We talked about how that is the Holy Ghost and she really wants to be baptized. We think she thinks she isn't prepared enough to be baptized but we know she could get baptized tomorrow (except for the fact that she has to come to church a couple more times) her faith is so strong and she is so ready. THEN later that night we had our Book of Mormon class and she was the only one that showed up. So it was us, Shayne, and the Duemmels (because that is their house). Shayne had a question about real intent especially in prayer. The Duemmels are both converts and they shared some really great personal experiences to share about real intent. Can I just say that members at lessons are THE BEST! Honestly, I think our investigators learn more from them and their personal experiences than us. 

Nothing super exciting about Thursday, just more less active visits.

Friday we saw Shayne again! Are we obsessed with her? Maybe. Is that a bad thing? I hope not. We taught the second half of the Plan of Salvation. She honestly soaks up everything we teach and the spirit that is there just testifies so strongly. She asked if there was provisions for people that didn't hear or accept the gospel and when we told her about the spirit world she was so happy. We could tell that brought her a lot of comfort but we weren't sure why. 

Saturday I found out my best friend is going to Guam!!! Hannah you are going to baptize nations. So last week while we were tracting we ran into this guy named Rachid (pronounced Rasheed) apparently he had met with missionaries before and so we went back on Saturday to talk to him. Come to find out he's from The Congo and speaks French and the reason he met with the missionaries is because his friend wanted to take the lessons so he translated. He's read the Book of Mormon and been to church but he never prayed about it. We asked him why and he said "why should I. If I pray and I receive that answer that it is true then what. I get baptized. Why? I am perfectly happy in my life right now. You guys believe in Jesus Christ and I believe in Jesus Christ. That's enough for me." We told him that God has so many more blessings for him and his family to bring even more joy into his life. He didn't seem to think that that was possible. But we mentioned eternal families. It was amazing. The atmosphere of the room and his body language shifted just slightly. We could tell that his heart had softened. Just a tiny bit but enough that he said we could come over every Saturday and we can study the Book of Mormon together. 

Sunday Shayne came to church! So we were waiting for her and I tell Sister Cragun, "this is like waiting for your date to pick you up. They say they are coming but you have that little fear in the back of your head that they will cancel last minute. And they are running late" She came but she could only stay for sacrament. All the testimonies that were shared from our branch were exactly what she needed to here. She had to run out but she said she was excited to talk to us about it on Tuesday. 

Great week. I love this work. Sometimes I feel like I have been here for 5 years and other times I feel like my mission just started yesterday. I love the gospel and I love Milford. I hope everyone has taken the time to share a small part of the gospel with those around you. I think it was Elder Bednar that said something like, if you can't think of something to say, bear testimony of Jesus Christ. I always try and bear testimony to every we met during the day. Even to Sister Cragun, I try and bear testimony. 

Lots of Love!

Sister Van Buskirk

We see this sign everything we drive to District Meeting. It says, 

"Allentown Art Museum. And ghetto".