The Christmas Tree I decorated!

Hello everyone! Can you believe it?!?! This will be the last letter I write as a missionary! It has been such a pleasure and a great building opportunity to serve the Lord! I had no idea what a mission does to a person! On my mission I have found testifying about Christ magnifies a person's strengths and weaknesses. I have truly learned a lot! So, for this purpose I will quickly review my week and do something that I do with Michelle every week in my personal email with her. We tell each other 5 things we have learned from the past week and 5 things we are excited for the near future. This time... I want to share things I learned from my mission as a whole and things that I'm excited about for the future RM life!

Ok! So it was a slower week with Thanksgiving and getting last minute errands done before ending my mission this week. It was quite funny because Tuesday and Wednesday were COMPLETE opposite in what kind of day it was! Tuesday was full of driving to appointments and dropping clothes off at the Visitor Center. We then had to drive home during rush hour... It took us 2 hours to get home!!! (Whereas on Friday morning there was NO traffic and it only took us 45 minutes to get to the Visitor Center.) Luckily we got there in time for our 6:30 dinner appointment! Wednesday we stood ALL day long helping Marilyn can soups and chili for when she has her surgery. It was fun, but LOTS of work! It was funny because we thought we would get a break while Marilyn left to go to her doctor appointment... But nope! She gave us orders what to do while she was gone. Haha. To say the least... We were pretty dead by the time the day ended! 

Thanksgiving was a BLAST! It was the best day of the week! We went over to the Owen's house for Thanksgiving and Marilyn was able to come! We all had so much fun eating and chatting away. Marilyn made herself at home and told us all about sailing! Sister Owen now wants to take her family sailing! Haha. After dinner we helped decorate their Christmas tree! Boy was that fun!!!! Marilyn even helped by telling us where to put things, since she can't stand on her feet for too long. It made me so happy to hear how much fun Marilyn had that day! She now wants to go to the Relief Society activity in a couple of weeks at Sister Owen's house! 

Saturday was a really fun day! We had the Ward service activity. We went to different Ward members' houses and helped rake their leaves. We FINALLY conquered sister Adams leaves! Thanks to leaf blowers and 41 bags later... Her lawn is finally finished!!! We also went to 3 other houses. One of which was the bishop's house! They had a HUGE backyard! It's like a mini forest! Luckily we only needed to do the front 1/2 of the backyard! All together with the 4 lawns we did... We had around 95 bags of leaves! Both Saturday and Sunday nights we had Thanksgiving dinner! So... I'm feeling pretty stuffed right now! Haha 

Monday we went to tour the naval academy! That was a lot of fun! Our tour guides was an elderly couple who served in the Navy. It was so neat to hear the husband's stories from serving in the Navy. I now have lots of respect for those who served and are serving in the military... I couldn't do that! I learned a lot today about the Navy. One of which is if a flag is hung upside down, that means the crew is in distress and they need help. Also the quote,"learn the ropes" came from Midshipmen learning the ropes of the sail boat! Bro. Okerson, who severed in the Navy, told us a story when he and his crew had to save 6 people in the ocean. Their plane failed and they had to make an emergency landing. They were able to save 5 of the 6. It was really sad about the person who died. He was finished with his mission and was ready to get on a plane to go home. But, the person who was supposed to navigate the plane got sick, so he replaced him and ended up dying for the cause. On that sad note, we got 4 6 pound milkshakes to share as a district! I think we were able to drink it all! Haha 

Alright! Now to the spiritual part of what I wanted to share! 

Some things I have learned from my mission: 

 1. I learned the Atonement covers way more than just sins. I never understood that until I came on my mission. Back in the Rockville ward they talked a lot about how the Atonement can help us feel joy and to be able to overcome every negative feeling that we feel here on earth. The Atonement allows us to have the power and the strength that we wouldn't be able to have on our own.

 2.I learned that service can mend a broken heart. When I had the roughest time on my mission it was through service that I was able to feel joy again. Service can also help soften other peoples' hearts. That is how Jan got interested in wanting to learn more about the church and eventually got baptized. 

3. I learned the power of prayer REALLY does work, even if it's the simplest of requests! There are countless times where my companion and I have prayed to be able to teach someone through tracking and we've been able to teach a lesson on the doorstep or on the streets. Also through prayers I have been paired with companions who were able to help me and grow into the person I needed to be. I just love the idea of prayer and how we LITERALLY can talk to our Father in Heaven who is ALWAYS waiting to listen to us 24/7. 

4. I learned there are people out there who is ready to hear the gospel! When I came out on a mission, I knew that it would be hard. So I thought every person I taught would be difficult to find and teach. But, there are always people ready to hear the gospel. Even people who are willing to just listen for five minutes and feel the Spirit. It's a really an amazing experience to be apart of!

 5. I learned while being on my mission I have grown a greater appreciation for the priesthood power. It truly is the power that can seal things on earth to heaven. It is the power that links us altogether. The priesthood power is what allows us to live with Heavenly Father again. Finally, it allows us to use God's power to be healed (both temporally and spiritually). What a blessing it is to know that using God's power of the Priesthood, would be like as if He was doing it himself. 

Things that I am excited for:

 1. To never be separated from my family again! From the first 2 weeks of my mission, I have felt a sliver of what Heavenly Father feels about sending us to earth. I know He misses us a ton and wishes for us to return back to him! Those first 2 weeks were hard, but I overcame that struggle through prayer and priesthood blessings.

 2. To be able to go back to college again and receive my degree in deaf education at UVU.

 3. To be able to call and text people that I have met on my mission and remain connected to them. There are many people who have touched my life!

 4. When the timing is right, to become a mother and wife. To be able to raise my children and have them be my "investigators" as I teach them the gospel!

 5. To be able to use my missionary experiences and apply it to my life. I'm excited to continue in reflecting back on my mission and to realize more of the things I've learned from it. 

I love you all a ton! Thank you so much for being with me these past 18 months. I have felt so much love and prayers from everyone. Thank you for all you have done for me. I am excited to see you guys again and to continue our friendship with each other! 

For the last time, 

 Sister Parker

The time when I got to sit in a massage chair! 😌

Hey Everyone!

Crazy it's time to write to all of you again! The days here are flowing by with everything that has happen! It's so weird to think that this upcoming week is my last full week on my mission! I'll make this week the best one yet! Now... On to what happened last week!!!!

Monday! We had a blast spending time in Annapolis! It was so cool going through the Capitol building. I learned that this was where President Washington resigned from being the President of United States! The bay was really pretty too... Even though it was super cloudy that day! Then we went out to eat and had an island themed lunch! Haha. We split a crab cake and a coconut cream pie together! We both decided that crab isn't our favorite thing in the world... Sorry mom and dad! Hehe.

Throughout the week we have been able to rake different people's lawns! It has been fun, but there are days where I think,"Man! My body hurts... but here goes nothing!" Haha. One day we raked one of our member's lawn (who is the sweetest lady ever!) and we didn't have enough time to pick up all the leaves. Luckily we did rake ALL the leaves to pick up on Saturday, which was the next day. Well... The morning of was BEAUTIFUL and nice! But by afternoon, we had a mini wind storm! It was crazy!!! The leaves were going everywhere, so we had to cancel raking the remaining leaves. Which was too bad because Steve and his wife really wanted to help us! But... Hopefully they will come this Saturday while our ward does a leaf raking service project! That should be lots of fun!

On Wednesday we had a really cool experience before heading home for dinner. We tracked for a tiny bit and made the decision to go street contacting for the last 1/2 hour. Well, we walked up in front of a craft store. I was looking at the BIG fake flowers that was for sell when a lady came up and asked if we needed coupons! We told her we didn't, and we ended up having a religious conversation with her! She didn't believe in God because of all the horrible things that has  happened on this earth. It was sad because it took her 4-5 years to convince herself that there wasn't a God, so she wasn't going to believe anything we said about God. But, she was super super sweet about it! She told us that she could tell there was a calm spirit about us and appreciated that we weren't confrontational. It was really neat because she opened up to us. She was going to a funeral this weekend, so naturally, we gave her a Plan of Salvation pamphlet. Hopefully that will help her open her mind more in realizing there is a purpose in life. Also that God WILL make everything right again! She even gave us a hug before we said our good byes!

Thursday was a super good day! It was full of departing events! Thankfully, Sister Capson got to join us! She is leaving a week before the next transfer, so she wouldn't be able to do her departing things in January. It was so nice and fun to have her there with me! That morning we went to the temple and had a really nice time there! One of the temple workers came to talk with us before we started our session. My favorite thing she said was about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Which is faith, repentance, baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. She explained how enduring to the end meant keeping our temple covenants. If we stayed obedient to our temple covenants, we can live with God again! While in the Celestial room, all I could do was say a prayer of thanks. There was such a sweet spirit as I thanked my Heavenly Father of all the things I have experienced on my mission. I'm so blessed to now be able to look back and admire how far I have come and all the lessons I have learned from my mission!

After the temple, we went to the mission home and ate some lunch! I was the lucky one to be interviewed first! My interview with President Johnson was so sweet and very personal. I love this man so much! I'm so grateful to have him as my mission President these last 5 months. He and his wife are the BEST! I love being able to talk with Sister Johnson and listen to all the stories she has to share! Although... President Johnson is also a great story teller too!

While waiting for everyone else to be done with their interviews... I sat in the massage chair!!! And oh my goodness! Did that feel good!!!! Sometimes it hurt a little, but I knew it was helping the knots in my back to go away. When I was done... I convinced Sister Capson to take a turn! That was so funny to watch!!!! I should have video taped her while she was siting in it! She kept exclaiming, "Ahh.... It hurts!!!" Luckily she even said that after a few minutes she could tell her back felt a tiny bit better too! Haha

That night we had a really nice testimony meeting! Everyone's testimonies were so nice and powerful! I talked about how the Atonement and service can both mend a broken heart and soften hearts as well. During my roughest time of my mission, I met Jan! While serving her, my heart and spirits were lifted. As I continued to serve her, my burdens were lifted and I saw her heart change as well! When we first met her, Jan didn't want to hear anything about our church. As the time went on, she started going to church every week, then finally became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! As I applied the Atonement, I had to reach out to those around me to help me overcome the challenges I was facing. I also talked about the amazing fact that we have the Priesthood power here on earth and  how grateful I am to be apart of this church! The more I'm here on my mission, the more I love this gospel! Everything just makes sense in the most simplest terms!

Saturday was a fun day! We went over to Marilyn's and helped put up her Christmas decorations. We of course had to to put some Christmas music on to get us in the Christmas spirit! I'm excited to spend Thanksgiving with Marilyn over at the Relief Society President's house! It will be a fun day for sure!

Meet Marilyn!!!

Sunday was quite the exciting day! Both Steve and Ali came to church!!! Sister Capson also was able to give an amazing talk about gratitude. She did a great job! After sacrament meeting, Ali did something so cute! She told us that she wanted to go home to get something to eat, then come back for the rest of church. Well... We didn't want her to leave, so thankfully the Elders had a ton of granola
bars in the back of their car. So we gave her 3 to hold her through church! Haha. She was a happy camper after that!

After church we were able to go with the Copes (They are amazing in taking everyone to church and took us to Why I Believe!!!) and Dana to Why I Believe! It was a good last one to go to! The testimonies were really great as well as the speakers! One of the converts who gave their testimony was actually a missionary here! Her name is Sister Lau and she's awesome! I haven't heard her conversion story before, so it was really neat! She joined the church with her family 10 years ago. It was really cool to hear about how all of her family joined in separate times and their own conversion to the gospel. The speakers had an amazing conversion story too! Their marriage was falling apart because the wife had a lot of faith and she was frustrated that her husband lacked faith. Well... Through the gospel, they were able to be united in faith and joined the church together! It was so cool to hear how the gospel literally saved their marriage!

Well... That wraps up my week! I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving and eat a ton! I'm excited to tell you how my Thanksgiving week goes! Right now we have 3 Thanksgiving dinners lined up! Haha. 2 on Thanksgiving day and 1 on Saturday! Wish my tummy luck! Haha

Much love,

Sister Parker

The time when I did the unexpected while tracking!

Hello to everyone!

How y'all doing? Can anyone believe that in a week and a half... It will be Thanksgiving?!?!? Where has the time gone? I hope you all have exciting and fun plans for Thanksgiving! We do! I'll get to that in a sec! This week was a good one! After the Wednesday P day... We had lots of fun, miracles, and service! Alright, let's get to it!

This is Ed!

Thursday was such a fun day! We went to go see Marilyn. The first thing I noticed when she answered the door was.... HER NECK BRACE WAS OFF!!! She got approved the day before that her neck has healed enough and she doesn't have to wear the brace anymore! She had that puppy on for almost 3 months! I was sooo happy for her! We just spent time listening to Marilyn about the things she was going through and it felt so good to sit down and listen to her! One of the things that she was worried about was not having a place for Thanksgiving. We automatically told her we would find a place where all 3 of us can have Thanksgiving together! Well... Yesterday the Relief Society president said she would love to have us and Marilyn for Thanksgiving!!! I'm sooooo excited!

After seeing Marilyn we went to help clean up Perry's yard from what Sister Cosper and Sister Capson did on exchanges. They had to leave a number of piles of leaves behind because the sun went down. Sadly.... We were only able to pick up the piles of leaves. His yard is no where close to being done! More leaves have fallen since Tuesday, so his yard is still covered with leaves... Not much you can do until the leaves are done falling! We then had to skedaddle to our dinner with the Ward missionary leader and his family which was fun! Afterwards we went to the RS activity! The activity that night was all about fun ideas what to do for the holidays! It got me really excited for Christmas... So watch out family! 😜 We learned about fun Advent calendars for Christmas! I'm so excited to do the one the church will put out! It's all about doing a simple act of service everyday in Dec up to the 25th! The next thing we did was learning how to make chocolate in ice cube trays!!! All you need is chocolate wafers, fun things to put on with your chocolate, microwave, and an ice tray! Once you fill your ice trays with chocolate and fillings... Put in the freezer for 2 hours and you'll have fun chocolates! The last thing we leaned is how to wrap presents!

This was one of the yards we raked!

Friday was another good day! Colleen gave approval for her youngest daughter to come to church! Her name is Ali and she's adorable! She came to church and LOVED it! She wanted to come everyday after school. 😃 Too bad she'll have to wait a week to come back to church haha! After our lesson with Colleen, we went to go see Steve! I don't know what kind of culture his family has, but I LOVE IT! When we knocked on the door, his dad called out to come right in! So we came in, sat down, and chatted with them in the kitchen! Steve's dad and mom are so sweet! While talking with them, his dad showed us a cool treat to avoid colds! You cut the top of a lemon off and put a peppermint stick in the middle of the lemon. Then you suck the juice out with the peppermint stick. It was a fun sweet and sour treat! Steve is an awesome guy! He told us that he wants to come to church and would try to convince his wife to come too! Sadly... He decided to stay home to take care of his mom. 😥 His parents are older. Hopefully next week he will come! That night we went to go help Sigred with eBay! Sigred is a friend of Marilyn who lives a few houses down from her! That was a fun night! Sister Capson did a great job taking the pictures of the things she was selling. Take note... eBay is super easy to use! Don't be intimidated to use it! Haha

Alright! Here is where my subject line comes in! On Saturday we planed to got tracking and teach 2 lessons! I'm proud to say that we accomplished that goal! At one house we knocked on the screen door because it was locked. (I find that screen doors are really annoying as a missionary!) While waiting I kept looking at the wood panel underneath the door and really wanting to knock on it! Of course no one came from the first knock, so I squatted and knocked on the wood panel! When I got up, Sister Capson looked at me like, "Are you nuts?!?!?" Haha. But hey! It worked because a guy answered the door! The only unfortunate part is that I woke him up from his nap! Oops! But, he was nice and chatted with us for a second. His name is Andres. At first he wasn't interested, but as we talked he opened right up! He's working on becoming religious again and agreed to let us help him do that! So, that's exciting!!! We have a lesson with him this Wednesday! Wish us luck! The second lesson we taught was a lady named, Nancy! She was super sweet! She didn't want to learn more about our church, but was really interested about doing family history!!! She already had close family members passed, so she appreciated us coming by to tell her about family history! Yay!

That afternoon we secretly did Marty's leaves! She hasn't been feeling very well this whole week. So, we figured that doing her leaves will make her feel better. Her neighbor ratted us out though! Haha. Marty was so happy and grateful we did that for her!

Sadly our Saturday ended on a sour note! While driving around following up with people... We saw a squirrel dart in front of the road! The car in front of us ran over it! We saw it twitching as we drove around it and the car behind us had a heart and drove around it too! Then the car behind that one, ran it over again! It was so sad!!! I can't remember ever seeing an animal be ram over before! We both mourned for the squirrel! Haha

Yesterday was the Primary Program!!! It was so cute! I was super glad that Ali could come and watch it with us! She seem to enjoy it! After church we went tracking again and taught a few lessons! The first one was Dan! It was crazy because he too wanted to get back going to church! But... It sounds like he wants to try his sister's church first. 😥 But, we planted the seed, so we'll see what happens! The other lesson we met was Rich! So, funny story! We saw him in his garage and we wanted to say hi. We kept trying to call out to him, but he didn't respond! He finally looked up and saw us! He pointed to his ear and I immediately thought, "He's deaf!" So I signed to him "you deaf?" And then he pulled out his ear plugs! Haha. He explained that's why he couldn't hear us! I was sooo wishing he was deaf though! He ended up not being interested, but it was fun talking with him!

Today we are planing to go to Annapolis!!! We are going to see the Capital, the bay, and go to Chick and Ruth's for some crab! I'm so excited!

I hope you all have a fantastic day and week!

Much love,

Sister Parker

The time we became professional leaf rakers!!!

A lot has happened in the last week and a half! There's a lot to talk about! So... Hopefully I'll hit the most important stories to share! So... Hold on tight because it's going to be a wild and fun ride! First story coming up... Halloween!!!! We forgot to buy candy 2x with going in and out of the house!!! Don't fret because we were able to get candy.... But barely! It was the LAST bag of candy and it wasn't even in the candy isle... It was right next to the toilet paper! We got an assortment of snickers... They were so good! The peanut butter one is my favorite now! Sadly... We only had 5 trick-or-treaters 😥. Luckily we taught Sunday School last Sunday and gave away a major portion of our candy! Haha. Sister Capson kept tossing snickers at a service missionary who could juggle... He had 4 or 5 going! It was amazing! Haha. Steve! I don't know if I talked about him before... But he's awesome! We tracked into him a few weeks ago. He's so sweet and he wants his wife to join with him learning more about our church!!! Such a blessing! More to come on this awesome family! Sigred! She is best friends with Marilyn and lives a few houses down from her! We got to teach her the Restoration!!! It went super well and Sigred had a good open mind to it! She wants us to come this week and help her with eBay and Christmas decorating! So excited!!!! She has to get it done before Thanksgiving because she has a Christmas party when she gets back! Joanne!!! Another tracking miracle! Praying works! We always pray to know what specific road to track on! We got to teach her the Restoration the next day we met her! It went super good and she wants to bring her cousin to church with her! Yay! More to come with her! Jocelyn! She's a total sweetheart! We haven't officially taught her anything yet, but she wants to! Her daughter is actually friends with the Bishop's oldest daughter. Jocelyn said she wants to learn about our church in members' homes and she doesn't even care if she knows them!!! We have yet to line something up, but that's exciting! Service! So, we were going to rake leaves for one of our investigators... But his wife answered the door and said that they didn't need help... They just use the lawn mower to get rid of the leaves! Well... We already had rakes and we wanted to do someone's yard! So we went across the street to Sister Adam's house. No one answered, so we went to town!!! It took a long time to do and we ran out of bags! It was so fun though! We sadly had to leave a pile and a half behind. 😥 in the middle of raking, Sister Adam came out and was shocked what we were doing! It was so funny! She's so cute. She felt so bad that she couldn't come help because she was trying to get out of the door. We didn't mind one bit! It was a blast! Then... We were soooo tired and had to eat a quick lunch to head over to Marilyn's house to do more service! We were dead! Haha. We push through and we are still alive! Haha! Luckily it was mostly just sorting through boxes. Ed! What a rock star! He hasn't been able to come to church in a long time with his poor health and being in the retirement home... Well... He came to church this Sunday! And that was so nice! I love sitting with him and seeing him enjoy being at church again. I also was able to share my testimony for my last "official" fast Sunday in the mission. I talked about how I am so grateful to serve a mission and meeting the people I have met. With all of these experiences I have encountered, it has  proven to me that God is truly in control of missionary work. Seeing hearts change on my mission has been such a blessing to witness! Along with all these people we have taught last week, we had a handful of people tell us we could come back and teach them! So, that's exciting! I'm looking foreword to checking back on them the rest of this week! Hopefully more stories to come! Exchanges! Yesterday I went to spend the day with Sister Ram in the ASL program while Sister Cosper went with Sister Capson. Which was fun because all three of us lived together at the beginning of Sister Cosper's mission! I had a blast with Sister Ram. We first had an appointment with... The car glass people! Last Sunday their car got broken into!!! So we went in to get it fixed! While waiting, we had a blast talking with the secretary. She was so cute! Then we went to see Gwen! That made me sooo happy! She is one of the deaf members I worked closely with. Gwen is so adorable! I got to hold her daughter's kitten the whole time and it feel asleep on me! Today we went to the temple! That was really nice! Now we are going to enjoy the rest of our day food shopping and emailing 😃 I hope you all are doing well and happy! Happy Early Thanksgiving! Sister Parker