Monday, May 23, 2016

Week 57 - Winnebago YSA Round 3!

Hello, hello! Transfer week again and looks like I'll be staying here. Not really a surprise since my companion is going home. My new companion is Sister Killian! I am pretty pleased about this news. I've heard she's super cool. She's only 6 months out, so I'm excited for the fresh blood coming in here. 'Twill be a great transfer! 

In other news we had a pretty decent week. George didn't get baptized, but it's okay. Clearly it just wasn't the Lord's timing. We did have a really great lesson with him and a recent convert about covenants. We used the new Temple and Families pamphlet, which is awesome! There's just not a lot we can do at this point. He won't ask Heavenly Father if this is true, and we can't force him to do that, so we're not sure what his status is at the moment. We'll probably just have to discontinue teaching him for now. Which makes me super sad, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. 

Remember that member referral, Cody, from a while back? We had a fabulous lesson with him at the beginning of the transfer and had very high hopes, but we've failed at trying to contact him since then. He wouldn't answer or return any of our calls or text messages so we kind of just figured he was ignoring us. But then at church yesterday his friend (who is the member) said Cody had just changed his number and didn't know how to get a hold of us and that he is still interested! We almost fell on the floor and we are anxious to begin teaching him again!! 

Apparently "Cody" is a very popular name because yesterday the elders had a HQ referral named Cody come to church for all three hours! Both Sister S and I thought he was one of the head honchos from the stake or something because he was so smartly dressed! But turns out he's actually a non-member YSA so the elders referred him over to us! We can't wait to start teaching him! 

I feel like we just jumped from winter to summer! Went tracting for a long while on Saturday and got a nice sun burn. But because of the nice weather we were able to teach lots of people about the first vision! It's so cool because every time we share the first vision I just know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God. The spirit just confirms to me that he really did see God and Jesus Christ. 

Love you all mucho, mucho! Have a lovely week.

Xo,
Sister Quist

last district meeting with these cool cats!

elder atkinson, elder miller, sister roskelley, sister white, sister schlosser, and sister quist

a selfie with me and Cherie (a recent convert)

Monday, May 16, 2016

Week 56 - "… so they didn't have belly-buttons?!"

Happy Monday! So happy it's a new week. Sometimes it feels good to just start over. Last week seemed to creep by ever so slowly, but good things still happened! Tuesday we had zone training and Sister S and I gave a training on "the Covenant Pathway". Which in a nutshell is Baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, the Priesthood (if you're a man), Endowment, and Sealing. And how all these covenants are essential to receiving ETERNAL LIFE. Heavenly Father is ready and willing to make these promises with everyone, but sadly not everyone will chose to follow this path. The training was all about what we can do to help people who haven't made any of these covenants make them and receive all the blessings God has for them. We need to focus not only on baptism, but seeing themselves in the temple. Which led me to read Elder Cook's most recent conference address on the temple, which is so good! One thing he said was, "pray that each of us will honor the Savior and make any necessary changes to see ourselves in His sacred temples". Amen. 

Wednesday/Thursday we went on exchanges with the Appleton sisters, Sister Christensen and Sister Carlini. Oh, and big news. Now exchanges are back to actual exchanges! So I packed up my stuff and headed to Appleton for the day. It was a fun change to work in a different area for a bit. Sister Carlini is a fabulous missionary! She is such a great example of diligence. We had a few appointments and it was such a treat to teach one of their investigators, Stacy, who is gonna get baptized this Saturday!! Woot woot! We also got sushi, which I was a little skeptical about, but it was actually really good and now I'm a fan!

Brb, gonna go teach Mo about the Plan of Salvation.

Alrighty. Haha, I love Monique so much!! We just talked about the Plan of Salvation and when we got to the part about Adam and Eve she said, "so they didn't have belly-buttons?!" Lol, never thought about that, but I guess she's right! Monique is doing so well!

Friday we got mac n' cheese bites from Tom's Drive In. Also known as "mac 'n crack". Welcome to Wisconsin, everyone. Deep friend mac n' cheese, we died (from all the cholesterol and because they're delicious). What else happened on Friday? Hmm, oh yeah! We were in the middle of weekly planning and we get a call from a recent convert telling us her friend was down to meet us for lunch. We were super surprised and a little nervous because from what she's told us her friend is a little cray. So we met him and it wasn't as bad as we thought it was gonna be, so that was good!

George is still George. We're trying so hard to have faith in him that he will make his date. He committed to pray about the gospel yesterday and so we're anxious to hear back from him about how that went. In all his years of investigation he has never prayed to know the truth. Crazy! We had a few very powerful conversations with him over tacos this past week. Last week we went over the baptismal interview questions and there were a few concerns that we had regarding actual doctrine that he didn't understand, so we talked a lot about those. Pray for George, please! Maybe we could start that as a hashtag? #pray4george Nah, but any prayers on his behalf would be gladly accepted!

I love this wonderful work I'm doing! I love my Savior.

Have a great week and choose the right!

Xo,
Sister Quist 



sushi and our jewish friend in the back!
spent way to much time on this poster, 
but dang it looked good. 
(for the Preparedness Fair in the Neenah Ward)


Mission Leadership Conference - May 2016
(from the Mission Blog)



Monday, May 9, 2016

Week 55 - Another Great Week + a Phone Call Home!

Hello, hello! Not much to say, since I got to talk to your cute faces yesterday!! What a treat. 


We did have MLC on Friday, which was such a spiritual boost! Both President and Sister Cutler gave super great trainings. Sister Cutler's was all about the six levels of motivation. Those being force, fear, punishment/reward, duty, faith/trust, love/charity. Kind of made me reflect on what makes me do the things that I do. Do I get up at 6:30 am because I feel obligated to do so or because I love my Savior and His gospel? I've been thinking a lot about that since Friday and just pondering how I can take even the simple things that I do as a missionary and do them because I love and trust the Lord. 

Yesterday we had some fabulous speakers in Sacrament meeting!! Our Elder's Quorum presidency all spoke in the YSA branch. All of them talked about mothers and women. The spirit was super strong and testified to me of just how sacred and divine the role of mother and wife is. I was inspired to read Sister Marriott's talk from the April 2016 conference. In it she says (to be read in your best southern accent), "The Lord’s Church needs Spirit-directed women who use their unique gifts to nurture, to speak up, and to defend gospel truth. Our inspiration and intuition are necessary parts of building the kingdom of God, which really means doing our part to bring salvation to God’s children". I feel oh so blessed to be apart of this wonderful work of salvation and to be surrounded by so many incredible women. Although the most incredible woman is miles away from me, I am still so lucky that she is mine for eternity. How grateful I am for mom's who nurture and teach, love and support, laugh and counsel, and many more things! God is good for giving us mothers.

Well. That's all I've got for this week. Keep it real wherever you are. Make good choices!

Xo,
Sister Quist


 Fun at the mall with George!

 Love this ginger companion of mine! :)
 Exchanges round 2 with Sister Peterson from Fond Du Lac!

The fab four kickin' it at MLC on Friday! We all came out together ONE year ago! 
Sister Blas, Sister Wise, me, and Elder Reina

Monday, May 2, 2016

Week 54 - Putting first things first

Happy Monday, everyone! Not much new to report this week, still a great week nonetheless. Went on exchanges with the Oshkosh sisters, Sister White and Sister Roskelley. Always an adventure on exchanges! Sister Roskelley and I went back to Oshkosh to contact on campus, and although the wind literally blew us over a few times we still were able to teach lots of people! We saw a recent-ish convert in the Branch who is struggling a bit and I think it helped her out. It's kind of amazing what daily scripture study and prayer can do for one's testimony. That's a big lesson that I've learned in this area. Especially at this YSA age it's super easy to get caught up in who's dating who and what's #trending and what music is coming out and how am I going to make enough money to buy bread. Amen, guys! I'm totally guilty of this. It's just tough to see how when we put those things first the Spirit becomes harder to recognize and reading your scriptures and saying your prayers don't seem as important. 

Hmm, what else happened this week...well, this didn't happen with me there, but it's still awesome! On exchanges Sister Schlosser and Sister White met with our new investigator, Cody and it went super well! He's excited to read the Book of Mormon and see what the church is all about. 

Met with Monique for her first new member lesson (cause she's a new member!!!!). After converts are baptized we teach all the missionary discussions over again. We were able to talk with her more about the Restoration and she was able to share her experience of coming to know the Book of Mormon is true. We asked her about the Holy Ghost and if she's felt a difference and she just smiled and said "yes"! She continued to tell us about an experience when at a friend's house. Her friend was struggling and the whole time Mo was talking with her she felt this prompting to say a prayer with her friend. She said she tried to suppress the feeling, but ultimately couldn't. She was pretty nervous because she's not very comfortable saying prayers with people yet, but she said as she started to pray the words just came to her and she said things that she, herself, couldn't say. I know that the spirit will truly give us the words to speak in the very moments that we need them! 

Remember Ben? Yeah. Met with him on campus this past Wednesday. Right from the beginning he seemed kinda off and as we got to the "baptism" portion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ he expressed that this wasn't "his path right now". Which made us super sad. We just decided that we're never having "DTR" lessons with people in the upstairs lobby on campus anymore cause this is the second time an investigator has dropped us there! 

Met with a way cool investigator, Juan, on Friday! He's from the Dominican Republic and is a student at UWO. Carolyn was able to come with us which was a HUGE blessing because her testimony is solid. 

Running out of time, but I love you all and I want you to know that I know this gospel is true. With all of my heart I know that Jesus is the Christ and that He died for us and that He lives for us! As a mission, we are reading the BoM and this past week I read in Mosiah chapter 23 and I loved, loved, loved verse 11! Read it, embrace it. God is so good! CTR. 

Xo,
Sister Quist

Sister Roskelley and I on exchanges!
 Fun to see my Oshkosh peeps!! :))