I couldn't think of anything funny

Hey Howdy Hey!!

Nothing too exciting this week except for a couple awesome lessons! 

Quick story: So we were in our apartment making some phone calls and whatnot when someone knocks on the door. I go answer it and there is one of those steak salesmen. The first thing he says to me is, "Is your mom or dad home?" I was like... "I live here..." He was like, "...oh..." Sister Shields was laughing so hard. For some reason people always ask how old I am. Someone asked if I was 16 the other day... oh whale

We met with our investigator Alvin this week and he is such a hoot. He's really old and calls us his ladies. We were talking about the Plan of Salvation and he thinks he is thinking the wrong things but we are like, "Alvin! That is right!" We invite him to church and he goes, "I'm taken my time ladies" And he does take his time. He still hasn't opened the presents his daughters gave him for Christmas!

We also had a super awesome lesson with our investigator Phanord. Phanord is origionally from Hati but his wife, Paulnicka, is a member. This week we read Lehi's dream and talked about how it applied to him. When we finished the chapter we invited him to be baptized again and he said, "Yes, I want that fruit!" We invited him to a date but he wanted to pray about it first. He was also able to come to church and he seemed to love it. We are so excited for him.

The other week week we were tracting an apartment building and as we were leaving there was a man carrying a bunch of baby stuff. We helped him carry it inside and were able to talk to him for a minute. His wife is having twins! Anyway, we got his informantion and told him we would call him soon. We called him on Saturday and he was so excited to hear from us! He wanted us to come over the next day! We went and taught him and he is so awesome! He reads the bible all the time and has an incredible love for God. We are so excited for him to read the Book of Mormon. We set up another lesson with him and he asked if he could bring some friends. We are so excited for Johnny!

I know the Church is true. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior. I have come to know that through study and prayer in the Book of Mormon. I know peace and answers come through the Book of Mormon. I love and miss you all! Have a fantastic week and don't forget to read your scriptures!

-- 

Lots of Love!

Sister Van Buskirk

When you finally get your Christmas package from your best friend she sends you the most comfortable hat ever. 

Paulnicka and Phayden (Phanord's family) 

 Phayden is SO cubby!!

Chitty-chitty Bang CRASH

So we had a pretty exciting week!

Monday we met with a guy named Bruce. One of the hardest things about being a missionary is when people try to prove what you believe wrong with what they believe. But the thing is, their beliefs contradicts each other. Well at least Bruce's did. The good thing is he accepted a Book of Mormon and said we could come back, maybe. He was just interesting. 

Tuesday we were able to watch the broadcast from the First Presidency! That was so exciting and I am so grateful for President Nelson and now President Oaks and President Eyring. I am excited for what will happen in the future with the three of them. President Nelson wants us all to go to the temple. We also went on exchanges and I was able to go with Sister Summers! Companions again! We went to a member's house for dinner and the member has this huge movie collection. she spent probably an hour talking about almost every single movie and trying to make them all sound educational. She pulls out My Big Fat Greek Wedding and tries to tell us it is about a girl that is afraid to tell her family she is in love with a non-greek man and I was like, okay yes but it is also about Windex. It was SO fun being companions with Sister Summers again!!! 

Wednesday was an adventure. We were going to visit a member and Sister Shields was turning on the street on what she thought was just snow. Turns out (if you get the pun please laugh) it wasn't snow. It was straight ice. So we are sliding and I didn't know what sliding on ice was so I was like, Sister Shields why aren't you turning the car? we are going to hit the curb. We did hit the curb but we were only going like 10mph so we didn't think it was going to be a big deal but it ended up braking a lot of things inside. So we dropped it off at the shop and spent all of Thursday walking which I loved because I felt like I was back in Philadelphia again. Except there weren't any other people walking around. We knocked a lot of apartments which was awesome because in Philly all the apartments are locked. We met some really nice people that we are excited to go back and see next week. 

So back to the car. Mark from Pepboys told us it was going to take until next Wednesday to fix it because our car is brand new, they didn't have any parts and they would have to order them. We get a call Friday afternoon and it was fixed! Heavenly Father does answer prayers! Sister Shields also wanted me to make sure to tell you all that she is a very good driver...

Saturday was our ward party except it was a movie night and we can't watch movies... So we went at the beginning and said hi to everyone and then went to dinner with Brother and Sister Jess. Brother Jess is 85 but he runs a couple miles every day. He reminds me a lot of Grumps because he likes to tease us a lot. I told them about the tshirt we got Grumps, "I make stuff up" and Sister Jess said they needed to get that for Brother Jess. They are so fun to be around! After dinner we went back to the church building to say hi to everyone again. It was just weird because a few people brought non-member friends but we couldn't be there... 

I was read Matthew 13 this week and the parable of the sower really stuck out to me. I had never really understood it until now and I was able to relate it to work as a missionary and the different people we meet. Sometimes we meet people like the seeds that fell on stony places. The seeds spring up really fast but because they have no foundation. There are people that get very excited about the gospel, they seem like the golden investigator but then they disappear off the face of the earth... Those that we teach that take a little more time are like the seeds that land in good ground. They take a while to grow but they bear so much fruit. We need to make sure we are planted in good ground so we don't become scorched by the sun. One of the best ways to do that is reading the Book of Mormon. I know it's true and I know it brings us closer to Jesus Christ! Love you all and hope you have a fantastic week!

-- 

Lots of Love!

Sister Van Buskirk

Saw this pass along card while we were tracting. I guess missionaries have been here often...

The "row homes" in Dover

 I found a cactus at target today! I almost bought it but Sister Shields told me I couldn't. 

Us walking to the shop to pick up our car. 

 Love her 

Favorite companion ♡

45 minutes in Philadelphia

Bon jou!! That is Hello in Haitian Creole! We are teaching a couple Haitians and in turn they are teaching us Creole! We had a pretty average week in the land down under. Taught a few lessons, knocked on some doors, served a few members. Just a typical week in a missionary life. 

Last Monday we helped a member start Family Home Evening because she wanted to start doing it every week this year. Well it ended up that her sister and her cousins had come to visit so we got to meet them. It turns out that the sister lived in my last area in Philly and the cousins live in southwest Philly! I was like yes let's talk about how great Philadelphia is! We ended up have a really nice discussion with them and were able to give the cousins a pamphlet about the Plan of Salvation! 

Tuesday we had a really awesome lesson with a guy named Jason. He's pretty interested and when we invited him to be baptized if he came to know that what we were teaching him was true, he said yes. A couple times during the lesson he realized he knew a couple members from the ward. Hopefully, we will be able to bring them to his lessons in the future! 

Saturday we went to the temple! We went with our recent convert, Rozana. We  did baptisms and she loved every minute. It was also so fun to be back in Philadelphia. Even though we were only there for a short time it was awesome. As we drove up into the city I was like "oh hey I know what that is" or "look if you go down that street and turn left, there's a mural of a girl with butterfly wings that's praying" If any of you think I'm joking about the mural I'm really not. I'll show you if you take me back to Philadelphia. It was also amazing to be in the temple and be rejuvenated by the special spirit that is in there. Even though we were only in there for a short while, we were able to separate ourselves from the world and think about how Heavenly Father feels about each one of us. 

Sorry for the short email. We don't have a whole lot of time today because we went to the temple but I hope you all have a wonderful week! This week we have the opportunity to hear from our new prophet, President Russell M. Nelson! I know that Thomas S. Monson was a prophet and I know that Russell M. Nelson has been called to be our prophet today. Prophets are here to lead us and help us stay on the path to Jesus Christ. I am grateful for Jesus Christ and the opportunity to hear from Him through His prophets. Have a great week! I love you all so much!

Lots of Love!
Sister Van Buskirk

DART buses have nothin on SEPTA

Love my comp ♡

 Us and Rozana at the temple. Yes that is a picture of us standing in front of the temple but it was cold outside! 

 I got to see Sister Roberts the other week and that made my heart happy. 

DelaWHERE?

Aloha my good friends! Last time you heard from me I was leaving the great city of Philadelphia. But I've been a slacker and haven't written an email in a good minute. I apologize for that and I hope this email will make up for it! SO I am now in Dover, DE with the fantastic Sister Shields. She spent the last couple years in Hawaii so she says Aloha a lot. Delaware is very different from Independence South. Let me try and help you visualize how many people are in this area. Let's say Milford has 1 person and Independence has 10. Dover has 3.5-4 people. But we are teaching some fantastic people despite the FREEZING cold!

There is this super awesome family, the Petersons and they have us over for dinner like once a week. Their kids have these super cute missionary tags that they wear and whenever they see us they run over to us to give us a hug and go, "Hi Missionaries!!!!" It's like the highlight of my whole life. 

Last week we got the best referral! We stopped by on Wednesday and gave her the bible she ordered and introduced her to the Book of Mormon. We came back on Saturday and she had read all the way to Mosiah!!! We were stunned. We invited her to pray about it and she was like, "oh I already know it's true." We invited her to be baptized and she accepted. The only bummer is we haven't seen her all week. But we know she will be back!

We also had some more special trainings this week which was so fun. They were supposed to be on Tuesday and Thursday but on Thursday we literally had a blizzard. We stayed inside all day because the wind would've killed us. Friday we got up and shoveled our driveway and our neighbors driveway to be nice because we are missionaries you know? Well our neighbor hasn't left since the storm! 

We had a really cool experience last night. Every week we make goals for different areas of our missionary work. Sister Shields and I decided we were going to do everything we can to always achieve our new investigator goals this transfer. This week our goal was 3 new investigators. By Sunday evening we had 2. We looked at the list of people that might be interested and decided to stop by some of them. We asked Heavenly Father to help us reach our goal and that we would do everything we could to find someone to teach. Every person we had planned to stop by wasn't home or was too busy at that time. We still had a few hours so we looked at our lists again. We called a few people but still no luck. We finally called a guy named Sidney. The sisters taught him a few weeks ago but they were never able to set up a return appointment. We called and he answered and was super interested in meeting with us again! We were able to reach our goal for the week! 

Ether 12:6 - "...faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." I know that Sister Shields and I had our faith tried. I wasn't sure if we were going to reach our goal. But in that moment of doubt I put my faith in God and stopped relying on myself. I know that as we lean on Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ we will be able to do all things. I have had the special opportunity to spend all of 2017 as a representative of Jesus Christ. It has been the greatest adventure I have ever had. The opportunity to devote all my time to serving Him and the people in Milford, Philadelphia, and now Delaware has been so special. I am so excited to continue to serve these next few months. 

I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week! Happy New Year!

-- 

Lots of Love!

Sister Van Buskirk

 Reporting lesson but it's freezing

My companion got a procedure so we got some good videos

 On our way to Christmas conference! 

Christmas jammies! #thanksmom

Christmas eve ft. Phanord

Guerdy, Sister Shields, Paulnicka, me!

The Nativity on Christmas eve. We got to be cows! 

I took this picture this morning because I realized I didn't take one after it snowed.