Letter #34 (May 14, 2014)

James update! Are you excited? I am. I love James. 

So last Sunday he received the Holy Ghost, the Sunday before that he was baptized, and THIS Sunday he was ordained a priest! YAY! He was so excited! 

Another cool thing about last week:

We have had a referral for a "Crystal (Rihanna's Mom)" since before I got here. We have tried to find the house a couple of times and never could. So we tried to get the member who referred them in the first place to show us where it is, but she got really sick. So anyway, she finally was able to show us and we finally were able to contact them!

So Crystal is the mom of the member's daughter's friend. Confused yet? So the member girl's name is Sabrina, and she has a friend named Rihanna who's mom's name is Crystal. Okay? Okay.

So Crystal let us in to talk to her and her three girls. The girls are 11, 7, and 3. Their father died in a car crash a few years ago, so it's just them.

So we taught them the beginning of the Restoration and Rihanna's eyes were glued to us the entire time. She was just soaking it all up like an adorable little sponge. We told her about church and achievement days and everything and she was SO excited about all of it! We asked for Crystal's phone number and while she told it to us, Rihanna ran and got a sticky note and a pencil and carefully wrote out both their home phone and Crystal's cell! And then when we asked when we could come back, she said "Monday! Tuesday! Wednesday! Every day!" She was so enthusiastic and just loving it! Apparently she ran up to Sabrina the next day in school and told her that "the people from your church came over and they're going to come back and I'm excited to go to activities with you!" Sabrina was kind of confused, but got it figured out in the end. SO CUTE. 

Rihanna just seems so ready for us! I think that her mom will take a bit longer because she said that she has really bad social anxiety, so that makes things a lot harder. But I'm so excited for them!

Things are also going well with Carinna and Gerry. We taught them twice since I first wrote about them. They just seem to really sincerely want what is right and what is best for their daughters. I know that they'll be able to find so much peace and guidance through living the gospel of Jesus Christ. It will really turn things around for that sweet family and I'm so excited to see it!

The rest of this week is going to be crazy because we have zone conferences this week. Since Sister Child is the mission nurse, we go to ALL of the zone conferences during lunch so that people can get refills for their med kits (they just have the basics, a few pills of each thing) and ask her medical questions that they otherwise felt silly calling about. So we are driving all over the mission this week! One zone conference per day starting yesterday. Hence my crazy email schedule. 

Anyway, I love you all so much! Write me! Send me cute little packages and hand drawn pictures! It will make my day!

~Sister Kretchman

Ps- I don't know if you'll be able to read it, but here's a picture of our district leader with the shirt that he wears pretty 

Letter #33 (May 5, 2014)

So James is now officially a member of Christ's true church! He received the Holy Ghost on Sunday, so now he's official! So exciting!!!!! By the way, is he not the cutest thing ever? He didn't have his giant grin on in the pictures we got of him, but still. His life's ambition now is to study the scriptures really hard so that he can answer questions in class like the other men do. He thinks that it's so cool that they know the scriptures so well and he wants to be able to participate too.

Okay so listen to this (read it!):

So remember that cool referral that we contacted last week? Well. We had set up an appt for this Tuesday aaaaaaaaaand... it fell through. She wasn't home. BUT. We already had a member with us for the lesson, so we just had her take us to see one of our investigators that we haven't been able to contact in over a month. We had THE coolest, most spiritual lesson ever with him, and then he completely dropped off. He likes our stuff on Facebook and stuff, but he won't respond when we text/call/stop by/Facebook him. It's SO frustrating. So yeah, I kind of felt like we should go try him even though it was 10ish in the morning and that has never worked when they tried that in the past. But as soon as I said something, all three of us felt like we should. So we did. Not only was he home (we set an appointment for that day at 4) but we also caught a less active that we have tried a million times out in front of her house! So we felt like that was probably a big part of the reason that we felt like we should go.

But wait! There's more!

So we're looking for a member to come with us to our new 4 o'clock appointment and no ones is responding! So again, we feel like we should call Sister Lemmon (the bishop's wife) and boom. Worked out. 

Gary was definitely home, but he didn't answer, so we have officially dropped him which makes me really sad because he's awesome.

BUT again. We already had a member, so we thought that we'd stop by a potential investigator. Now get this, I've been updating the iPad area book for the last few weeks, transferring all of the paperwork from the giant-binder area book into the iPads. So I'm pretty dang familiar with the names of all of the potential investigators in there. Well we were planning on night last week and the name "Helen Garcia" popped up out of nowhere. Neither of us recognized the name or background info at all. So naturally we're like "heck yes we're going to try her!" But then we had so much nurse stuff all week that we never got a chance to. So we stopped by with Sister Lemmon. 

We knocked about three times, we could hear the TV inside so knew that there was someone there. We were just about to leave when a young woman answers the door. She looks like she's barely older than me. We ask for Helen Garcia and this girl has never heard of her and has lived in that house for a couple of years. So we introduce ourselves. "I'm Catholic." That's great! We teach all about Jesus Christ. 

She let us in. The house is really small and in pretty poor condition. There were three little girls in there (5, 2, and 4 months). The woman (Carinna, like "Karina") sits us down and then runs to get her boyfriend so that he can listen too. We taught them the Restoration and then had the boyfriend (Jerry) pray at the end. Then we asked them how they felt and they looked at each other, kind of surprised, and then started describing how they felt so much peace and warmth and lightness. You could tell that neither of them had ever really felt the Holy Ghost before. It was so amazing to see! They just want so badly for their girls to have a good life and good morals. They want them to be raised right, which is just what this gospel will help them do! We have a return appointment for tomorrow evening! They are just the sweetest little family, I'm so excited for them!

What was really cool then is that Sister Lemmon told us afterward that she had kind of felt off all day. She prayed and read her scriptures, but still felt weird. So when we called she figured that coming out with us is just what she needed to get back on track. Boy did it ever! She was so happy to have been there to witness that miracle. Stuff like that NEVER happens to us. Ever. I think only one other complete stranger has ever let me in to teach them in my 8 months on my mission. 

So yeah. It was basically the coolest thing ever.

Last exciting thing: I'm talking to my family on Sunday!!!!!!!!!! I feel like it wasn't that long ago that I talked to them last time. Christmas doesn't seem like it was that long ago. I'm excited! 

Anyhow, I love and miss you all! I hope that you are all doing great missionary work back home!

~Sister Kretchman

Letter #32 (April 28, 2014)

Oh my goodness. The happiness that comes from being an instrument in the Lord's hands to help guide someone to the waters of baptism is completely indescribable. When Sister Child and I led him to the room where his baptismal interview would be, we felt like proud parents sending their kid off to their first day of kindergarten. He was SO nervous. He was afraid that he would answer something wrong. He studied the baptismal interview questions all week! But of course he passed. 

James is seriously the sweetest little old man ever. He is 75 but still works doing custodial work at the local college. He is pretty quiet and unassuming most of the time, but he can be SO funny! So listen to this: he had to be baptized twice because his foot came up the first time. So after the baptism was all over, he was talking to us and said "they had to double-dip me for all of my sins!" It was the cutest/funniest thing ever! He told us that he just felt so clean and like a huge burden had lifted off of his shoulders. He also told us that he has noticed that he is a lot happier/social/more confident than he was before. Seeing the change that the gospel makes in people's lives really is such a miraculous thing to see. I sang I Come to Him at the baptism and was having a hard time not just grinning through the entire thing. So I just smiled like an idiot before I started singing and then once I finished.

Anyway. The rest of the week was pretty much just nurse stuff. Poor Sister Child has gotten SO many texts/calls this week, it's ridiculous! So we didn't get to do a whole lot. We did get a really cool referral though! So we get a call from a sister (Sister Barnes) in the ward that neither of us really know. She said that she just got a really interesting phone call. One of the sisters that she visit teaches is totally inactive and will never meet with Sister Barnes. So this sister calls Sister Barnes and tells her that while she was going door-to-door (she's a real estate agent) she came across a lady that just seemed careworn. She said that she felt a prompting that this lady needed a visit, so she called her visiting teacher. And her visiting teacher in turn called us! So long story short, we got a referral from an inactive member of our ward.

So then we go to try to contact it and her street (ONLY her street!) is blocked off with cones and tape and everything! It was so funny! It made us think even more that she must be pretty promising. So the member that came with us just parked in the street over and we walked to her house. We have a lesson with her this Friday! 

That's pretty much it for this week. It was really slow, but oh so wonderful! I still can't believe that James got baptized yesterday! I was freaking out like Paige when she was getting ready to go to a Matchbox 20 concert. I'm still all fluttery inside! It's kind of bittersweet though because now I don't have James' lessons to look forward to! The ward is taking care of his follow-up lessons. It was sweet, James asked if he would still see us and we told him that we'd still see him at church and that we'll stop by every so often, but we won't have a regular appointment with him. He was so disappointed! He said that he always looked forward to us coming over. I always looked forward to teaching him too! He really is the definition of a golden investigator. He has been being prepared for 75 years. People kept congratulating Sister Child and I and we just kept saying over and over that it wasn't us. It was all Heavenly Father, we were just lucky enough to be the instruments that He used to guide James to the waters of baptism. I am so incredibly grateful that I had that opportunity. 

I love and miss you all!

~Sister Kretchman

Ps- Sister Child just looked at the weather for the rest of the week. It's supposed to be 105 degrees on Friday! NASTY.

Letter #31 (April 21, 2014)

Happy late Easter everyone! I hope that you all had a wonderful, Christ-centered Easter.... and ate candy until you got sick.

Easter on my mission was amazing. Well, Easter week in general. I'm sure most of you saw my #BecauseofHim posts on Facebook. If you haven't seen the video yet, watch it. Right now. Do it. I've watched it about a bajillion times this week and it still gets to me every time. Even just listening to the music, I can just picture what's happening. The people that made it were definitely inspired. I loved being able to just completely focus on all the the Savior has done for all of us and what the Atonement means for me in my life.

This week was a hard week. We have been struggling to meet with a lot of our investigators and we have had to drop a couple. It was the perfect week to remember that someone else knows how the disappointment and frustration feels. He made it possible for us to keep trying; to do a little bit better each day. And while this week was tough, it was also SO good. James is getting baptized this Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm just a tad excited. Can you tell? I bet you can. 

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. He just has the sweetest testimony and is just so ready. I couldn't help but smile when he prayed yesterday after our lesson with him, he said "I'm really excited to be baptized, I'm nervous, but I'm ready to go." It made me think of The Best Two Years, "I'm fine! I'm ready to go!" But he is. He is so ready and SO excited. He has such a sincere desire to follow Jesus Christ. He also told us that one of his co-workers stopped him the other day and asked him what his recipe is for happiness. "You always used to look kind of grumpy, but now you are smiling all the time and just seem to glow with happiness." That was such a sweet moment for us. I can't imagine James looking grumpy, but he has said himself that he has been able to see a change in himself since he first came to church. I have been so blessed to have the opportunity to teach him. I'm so happy that Heavenly Father has given me this great privilege. He truly is amazing.

In other news, his wife dropped us this week. She said that she feels like something is holding her back (SATAN) and that she doesn't want to take any more lessons right now but that she will resume at some point and still wants to be baptized as some point. We're not really sure how to help her at this point. We'll see what happens.

Some more good news though! We had an Easter activity this Saturday and we had an investigator family come! I really think that they enjoyed it! And it was so sweet because the son, Johnny, was so excited to do the Easter egg hunt, but when I saw him once it was over, he didn't have any eggs. I asked him if he had found any and he said "Yeah, I found a whole bunch, but I saw a kid that only had one, so I gave him all of mine." I couldn't believe it! Let's just say that Johnny's not the kind of kid that I would have pegged to give away all of his candy. So when he told me that I was just so proud of him and so happy that he got to have that experience of really feeling compassion for someone else.

Anyway, something silly that happened this week: I broke one of the elder's kick stand clean in half! His bike seat looked really cushy and so I gave it a try. Next thing I know I hear a ping! And fall over! I was horrified! I felt SO bad! Luckily they had an extra at the mission office, but still. I felt horrible. He wasn't mad at all though, he was really sweet about it. Pictures to come.

Welp, I'm drawing a blank about what else to write, so I guess I'm done.

I love you all! Have a great week!

~Sister Kretchman

Here's us and the totally ghetto Easter bunny at the ward activity!

She really wanted to buy this but it was 20 bucks.

Letter #30 (April 14, 2014)

Well hello there my fine friends/family!

My new-comp-every-transfer streak is over! Sister Child and I are staying together and I'm so excited! This is my first time not getting a transfer call and I love it! 

So some things about this week:

I:

Climbed a tree

Used a saw

Rode in the back of a pickup up a mountain

Got complimented on my shoes by old ladies with walkers (Ouch. You know you're a missionary when...)

Shot a fellow deputy

Ate lots of icecream

Got told that I look like I'm 15

Got called "that lady"

Taught some awesome lessons!

So the first three are from doing service this weekend. I was so excited about climbing a tree! I miss climbing! It's hard to saw with your left hand while up a tree though. Oh well.

Twice now little old ladies with a walker/cane have complimented me and my companion's shoes. So sad. I'm used to wearing old lady shoes by now, but still. And they're dying, I'll have to take a picture.

Last Monday the elders taught us a card game called "Bang" where you are either the sheriff, a deputy, an outlaw, or a renegade. I was a deputy, so my job was to protect the sheriff and kill the outlaws and renegade. But I didn't know who they were, so I accidently killed a fellow deputy. It was sad. But me and the sheriff still ended up being the last ones standing, so it was okay. We're hopefully going to play again today.

Our investigator James bought us a pie for our lesson with him on Saturday! So sweet. Later he said that he was bribing us to tell him the right answers to the baptismal interview questions. We told him that it's not a big deal, but he's so nervous! Cute. He's getting baptized on the 27th!!!!!!! Anyway, he introduced us to some delicious icecream by a company called Tillamook. It is SO creamy and delicious! So we bought some today. YUM.

Okay, so we had dinner with a less active/part member couple the other day and when I told them to guess my age they said that if I wasn't a missionary they would have guessed 15! That's a new low for me. But then a couple of days later, one of the youth said "I was wondering 'why is that lady looking at me?' and then I realized it was you!" So now I'm a lady. That sounds super old. Oh boy. I just can't win here! Haha, oh well.

Lastly, we taught a couple of really cool lessons with people that we haven't managed to teach for a while.

The first one was Aaron and Amy. Aaron is a less active return missionary and Amy is his non-member wife. We started teaching them when I first got here, but Aaron works a ton, so we've been having a hard time getting in to see them. Aaron totally has a testimony, he is just "a little rebelious" as he puts it. Amy hasn't seemed super interested for the most part, but they keep letting us come back. Well. We found out that Amy is pregnant with a little girl! The next lesson we had to teach them was Plan of Salvation, we talked a lot about how we can have total happiness and joy as we follow the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We really focused on how as they follow Jesus Christ, they will be able to have more peace and happiness in their home and more guidance from the Holy Ghost to help them raise their new baby. We really compared Heavenly Father to earthly parents and how He wants the best for His children, just like they want the best for their daughter. I think that it really got them thinking. I really hope that things start happening with them, I know that their little girl will have a much a better life if she is raised in the gospel than if she is not. They will be able to have so much more happiness in their family. I really really hope that they start making an effort to follow Jesus Christ. We'll see how it goes.

The second one was with Myles and Serena. They have had missionaries on and off for a few years, so we just asked them why. Then the Holy Ghost just totally took over for Sister Child and she was able to really talk to them about what they want in life and how they plan to get there. It was the best lesson we've ever had with them. It was really cool. They should hopefully be coming to our ward's Easter egg hunt and breakfast on Saturday AND church on Sunday.

On a more somber note, Adriana told James to tell us that she doesn't want to meet with us anymore. She said something to the effect of that she is too deeply rooted in Catholicism. We're going to try to see her at least one more time and just see what's on her mind. We really think that there is some underlying issue that we haven't been able to figure out as of yet. We're hoping to be able to figure out how to help her. She has said that she knows that all of this is true, and yet she is still struggling. I don't know. We'll see.

I love/miss you all!

~Sister Kretchman

Laid out Sister Child's blanket so it could dry

District

This apparently says something...

 Missionary Shoes:

Letter #29 (April 7, 2014)

AHHHHHH.

So basically only missionaries actually watch conference at the chapel anymore, so when President Uchtdorf said President's name we all started FREAKING OUT. But then were really confused when he said two names and then said that they were mission presidents and neither of them were President Becerra. Someone said that he was referring to Sunday School when he said that though, so I don't know. But it has been confirmed. President Becerra is an area seventy for Sandy, Utah! CRAZYYYYYYYY.

Okay, I'm done geeking out.

This week was a lot slower, but a lot of that had to do with an onslaught of nurse calls. Sister Child got SO many calls/texts earlier this week! It was crazy! And all of our investigators have been sick or else have a family member that is sick that they are taking care of, so we were hardly able to see anyone this week, which really stunk. We did invite a TON of people to conference though.

Speaking of which... I LOVE General Conference! SO GOOD. I loved Elder Holland and Sister Stevens' talks. And well, all of them. I can't wait to re-read all of them! 

We also had an AMAZING zone meeting this week. There was a lot of spiritual awesomeness going on, but this is what I came up with:

If you saw someone get hit by a car, you wouldn't think, you would just rush over and try to save their life. Right? You would call 911, make sure that no other cars got in the way, make sure that he/she is breathing, etc. We would do anything to save their life. But really, if you think about it, their physical life is of much lesser consequence than their spiritual life. So why do we not do everything that we can to save them from spiritual death? Everyone dies physically. It is part of God's plan for us. But we don't have to die spiritually. And God doesn't want us to. So when we see all of the people all around us who don't have the truths of the Restored gospel in their lives, then we should rush to their aid and do everything that lies within our power to help them. To save them. We are all spiritual superheroes. Every one of us. We should respond to saving a spiritual life with the same (or greater) fervor as we do with saving a physical one. Because ultimately, that is much more important.

I am working on becoming a better superhero. It isn't easy, but we MUST work on becoming better so that we can save our brothers and sisters. I hope that you are all doing all that you can to help those around you.

I love you all and pray for you all the time.

~Sister Kretchman

Letter #28 (March 31, 2014)

So this week I made up an object lesson. No big deal. (I was pretty dang excited about it).

So it was about the importance of going to church. We sliced some slits into the bottom of a water bottle that represented our investigator/his less active mom. Then we had a big cup that represents going to church and a smaller cup that represents weekly spiritual things like seminary, daily prayer and scripture study, RS activities, etc. So Sister Child drew the two of them on the bottle and then drew some pictures on the two cups. Let's just say she's not quite an artist. Granted, if it had been me doing the drawing, it would have been even worse, but still. She draws Brad's (our 14-year-old investigator) body first, which looked decent. And then she drew the head. A teeny peanut head. And then she drew the hair, which ended up looking like a 'fro. I laughed SO hard. What made it even better is that before the lesson, Brad started talking about how his hair would look like an afro when it got windy when his hair was longer. I basically started dying at that point. Which made him really confused and really curious about the lesson. It was pretty great.

So anyway, this is how the object lesson worked:

When you go to church, you are filled with the Spirit (we pour the "church" cup into the water bottle). But throughout the week, the Spirit drains out because life is crazy and we have school and work and rude people and whatnot. (The water drains out of the slits in the bottom of the bottle). Throughout the week, we do lots of wonderful, spiritual things, but they don't fill us up completely (we pour in the "other" cup). We need to go back to church the next Sunday to get filled up again.

It seemed to go alright. Anyway, I just thought that it was cool that I made up an object lesson. Pictures to come (which are probably much more exciting to me than to you, but oh well).

Anyway, on a less-than-cool note, Adriana seems to be stuck right now. Her husband James is still intending (and super excited!) to be baptized on April 26th, but Adriana is not intending to at the moment. We're not quite sure how to help her because she can't seem to put into words what is holding her back. We think that a lot of it has to do with anxiety about coming to church/being baptized because the only time she leaves her apartment is to go to doctor's appointments. We also think that while she believes that it's all true, she hasn't gotten a concrete witness from the Spirit yet, which is causing problems. We'll see what happens. 

We were also really frustrated because we were expecting three investigators to come to church yesterday and only one came. I just don't know what to do with the other two. We really thought that we might have gotten to them finally, but I guess not.

Anyway. A REALLY cool thing happened on Saturday. We have been trying to find a baptism to bring James to. But there seriously aren't any coming up in our zone. James' baptism is the next one coming up. But he got to see one this weekend.

So get this:

We usually teach James at two on Saturdays and the stake usually has their 8-year-old baptisms at four on Saturdays once a month. Well. This week we changed James' appointment to three so that a particular member couple could come with us. And the stake just so happened to change the baptism to three because of the women's conference. So we get to the church, and what is happening? A baptism. It was so perfect! We watch the baptisms and then snuck out and taught James the Plan of Salvation. It made him even more excited! He seriously is the sweetest little old man ever. So cute. But really, it is so amazing how Heavenly Father is really looking out for all of his children. He made things work out just right so that James could see a baptism. Amazing.

A couple of other cool/fun things:

1. I finally felt an earthquake! It was so crazy/slightly scary/really cool! It wasn't big enough to be terrifying or anything.

2. We ate at the Tonks' house a couple of weeks ago. SO cool. They named their dog Lupin and their chameleon Nymphadora (how appropriate). We're basically best  friends now. Not really, but they are a pretty dang awesome couple in my book. I wish my last name was Tonks!

3. (So more than a couple) I LOVED the women's conference on Saturday AND we had an investigator there! The Spirit was SO strong. I loved the music, I loved the talks, and President Eyring? I'll tell you what! SO GOOD. Oh man. The whole thing was just incredible. I am SO excited for conference!

Speaking of which, I want everyone to do something for me. Everyone get out a scrap of paper and write down what you would ask God if He were sitting down across from you. Just you and Heavenly Father in the room. You can ask Him anything. How to be a better friend/mother/daughter/father/son/employee/student/missionary/etc. How to overcome _________ struggle. Anything. 

Now watch this: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2011-09-54-blessings-of-conference?lang=eng

I know that as you really pay attention during conference, and as you pray this week to receive the answers to your questions, that one or more of the speakers will say something that will answer your questions. All of them. As you listen with the Spirit, you can and will receive personal revelation as you watch conference. 

I love you all SO much!

~Sister Kretchman

Here's a picture of Brad with mini-Brad with an afro.