November 17th 2014

This week has been amazing :)

First off we got transfer calls and I’m staying another 6 weeks which puts me in Kennewick for 6 months just like in Yakima lol and I get to go to the temple with my companion Sister Allred. Woot! I’ve gone to the temple with every one of my companions now :) I love being in areas for 6 months I get the hang of things and get to really know the investigators and they’re needs. Lots of people say they get sick of areas fast but I love 6 months! It’s the perfect time to do the Lords work. Someone told me the other day that I haven’t found the one God needs me to find yet but let me tell you something me and my comp are trying to find them all! All the people that want this! We are talking to everyone. We are being obedient and we are praying for our investigators all day every day. I keep a prayer in my heart all the time and it’s a really cool feeling. Praying all day every day you just feel the spirit more. God truly does know the needs of every one of his children. It’s amazing. We have an investigator that doesn’t really feel like he is worthy to pray but he reads the book of Mormon every single day and doesn’t want to put it down. We went by his house last night before dinner and dropped him off a treat and a quote. He was telling us he took the tv out of his diesel truck so he won’t get distracted by it so he can read the book of Mormon more. I don’t know about you but I call that a GOLDEN Investigator!!!! :D he is so solid. We have an investigator Adreana on date for the 13th of DECEMBER She and her family came to church . They missed sacrament but they got there. They used to be way less active but I know they love their daughter enough to start going more. oh man! I wish you could see how much God is blessing this area. me and my companion are so lucky to have all these amazing people. A lot of our investigators have night jobs and have really sad things that came up. When we met them one of our investigators dad is struggling with cancer and she is trying to make enough money to help pay the bills . It’s so sad but we had a cool thing happen with her. We made Christina a pie on p-day and a couple days later we brought it over to her with a quote and she was crying when she answered the door. She told us “wow the stars just aligned because I really needed this!” We told her “No its God. He loves you so much and He prompted us to come by and we did.” We decided after companion prayer that we need to bring her that pie tonight. God listens to every one of his children’s prayers and he works through other people to meet their needs :) God truly does love us. a member and her daughter came out with us the other day. Sister Monson and her daughter Arianna came out to be a missionary for a day and she took pictures of us tracting and stuff. 

 The best part of it was that they were willing to do the Lords work in this cold weather and her daughter is so full of the spirit. It was like “let’s get to work!” and started even knocking the doors. It was so cute! I just know she is one of Gods Elect children that loves people so much. She is going to be an amazing missionary and is going to change so many people’s lives. Arianna showed me what missionary work is really about and that’s to love people and to be exited to get to the next door to see if they are ready to hear the Gospel :) OH man! I love my mission and all the people I’ve met on it so far! I get to be here 6 more weeks to help these people keep their commitments and help them enter the waters of baptism and to help them build their testimony of Christ’s gospel :)



Love Sister Steen

My week full of Miracles and Blessings - November 10 2014

I did something to my wrist. A member of the ward is a chiropractor and he put this tape stuff on it.

Hey everyone, sorry I don’t have a lot of time this week to write. I just want you all to know that this week has been full of miracles. We keep finding new people to teach every day almost. It’s crazy! Now they just need to progress and keep commitments. We have found 4 more new investigators and will have one more today. We are talking to everyone and using the book of Mormon in all we do. We have been praying personally for each investigator individually and by name. We had an amazing lesson with our ward mission leader and our investigator Jacob. it was on the plan of salvation and it was so cool. He had so many questions and we were able to answer all of them with the scripters. He is so solid. we have noticed that whenever we invite him to pray he says he isn’t on that level yet and he holds back tears. It was so cool me and sister Allred were so in tune with the spirit and we both where thinking that same scripter to give to him it’s about Christ and his atonement. He doesn’t feel worthy to pray. We are praying for him ALL THE TIME. We met this lady and her name is Elsa :) she is like 78 and knows the book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God. The only thing that she is having trouble understanding is the authority or in other words the priesthood. to get baptized we taught all over the place just to see what she needed and it’s the understanding of the priesthood :) we are so exited her daughters are members and she isn’t but reads the Book of Mormon. She said we can come back and so we are going to see her this week :D we had some cool experiences with people that weren’t too interested but we asked them if they needed help moving. They are Russian and they are moving to Chicago !!!!!! They said no but they said they had food they needed to get rid of and we don’t have much food because we moved into some apartments in Hansen Park so we didn’t buy much last week. So it was really cool that God blessed us with that. The next day we went to one of our new investigators houses and she made us spaghetti and a lot of it to send home. She didn’t even know we moved so cool! she had a lot of questions about the Mormons and how they live and all these crazy things like if we get home schooled and some other stuff. we explained to her that we are like normal people and we talked about the Book of Mormon and she said she wanted to read it. We gave her a chapter to read and she said she will read it before we come back so we can have a discussion about it. She is such a sweet lady, kind of crazy. She dumpster dives for fun! but we love her and she needs this gospel in her life soooo bad. After we left her house we were walking home and we talked to this lady in the parking lot. Her name is Madison and we got to know her a little bit. she told us she was looking for a church and we told her about ours and how it’s just across the street and that we are doing a church tour on Monday. She said she would probably be able to come. we didn’t get to teach her much but she was interested and today she will be a new investigator if she comes :) oh man so much amazing stuff is happening in both wards we are doing a ward fast and invitation Sunday. We get to be part of both. We get to sing in the Windsong one. We are singing “if you could hide to Kolob” and in the Ridgeview one we get to give a talk. We are following up with what we are going to be speaking on tonight with bishop. Usually I’m super scared to talk in front of a lot of people but the mission has given me so much more confidence. me and sister Allred had an amazing companion inventory and we told each other all that we were struggling with and we are going to help each other in all we do to keep having faith, patience and love in this work. It’s been hard for both of us but all I want is to help sister Allred and help her to have an amazing mission full of blessings and miracles :) :) I LOVE MY MISSION!!!

Love Sister Steen 

 My Zone

 Jessica got baptized a couple months ago before I got here.  We had dinner with her.  Gracy and Kadence wanted to wear our tags lol 

Moving out going to La Sirana Apartments

The blessings of having faith

This week has been full of miracles. We have 7 new investigators. We haven't had a new investigator for about 4 months and this week we got 7 and 2 of them are super solid. 4 from Windsong Jose, Ulysses & Monica, and Jacob and 3 from Ridgeview Hazel, Christina, and Eric. Me and sister Allred are really striving to have exact obedience and exact faith in the Lord. We have seen Gods hand in our work and we know he is pouring out blessings to us. I have been studying about having faith and I’ve learned it’s not just having faith in God but having faith in me and in this work. Having faith to extend an invitation and having faith they will be willing to progress. My prayers to Heavenly Father are so much more meaningful. l pray for every investigator by name and pray for what they are personally going through. all together we have 9 Investigators Jen in Ridgeview and Adriana in Windsong. We have asked Jacob when he comes to know if this is true if he will be baptized. He had a funny response he said” well duh I would be stupid if i didn't!” lol We know he is one of Gods elect. We also invited a 17 year old girl named Natt but she denied the invite but wants to try out some youth activities. We had an amazing lesson with Jacob. Our member didn't end up coming with us so we had the lesson on his porch. He is a trucker and is home Saturdays and Sundays. We taught him the restoration and he understood it all he kept saying it all makes sense. he told us after our first visit with him he read the testimony of Joseph and the Introduction of the book of Mormon. He said he brings the book with him on the truck and his routine every night before he goes to bed is he reads the book of Mormon and he said he doesn't want to stop reading but he has to get some sleep. He also told us he finds himself defending our church beliefs. he said” I don’t know why it’s so hard for them to see how much it makes sense” he is so prepared we asked him if we could pray with him but he told us he isn't on that level yet. He really wants to go to church so we invited him to come on Sunday. We also had a lesson with Jose. We had our word missionary and his wife with us, the Brooks, and we taught the restoration. He hasn't read yet but he promised he would read before we came back. It was a good lesson. he shared his testimony of God and it led into the restoration really well :) we told his son Sam about our youth program he seemed interested. we have been thinking of some new finding ideas and one is getting to know our members and invite them to do missionary work. by inviting our close friend or family member to either go on a church tour or take the lessons or invite them to go to church with them. also we gave some ideas to our wards to do a fast for missionary opportunity’s then to have an invitation Sunday. Windsong ward is planning one right now. we are helping them pick the hymns and the topic is the plan of salvation. Me and sister Allred have been invited to sing. we are looking for the perfect song right now. I'm so excited to see the members get excited about missionary work. it was cool listening to some of the sisters testimony at church one sister from each ward told there experience of going out with us and its cool to hear how they really felt and what they gave up to go out with us and how in the end they felt blessed. It was so cool we had a door step lesson with Art with a member from Ridgeview ward and sister Pratt. We got to know her and what trials she is going through. She wants to know her purpose on this earth and she just has so many questions. we told her about the book of Mormon and she got so excited and she took the book of Mormon. she wasn't able to go to church this Sunday but she really wants to go and learn more and to really know :) me and sister Allred work every day to help each other in our weaknesses and we know we aren’t perfect but are working on being perfect in Christ :)




Love Sister Steen

            My half way mark..9 months on my mission, October 15...get it? 9 months lol

October 27, 2014

Hey everyone :)



Wow this week was fun and next week is going to be crazy!!!!

So last Monday it was raining!!!! and we parked are car and went street contacting :) super funny! so we were on one side of Columbia center Blvd. and we saw this guy running so we hurried across the street and talked to him. He sat there and listened to what we had to say and funny story he ended up being a bishop over the young single adults. haha it was funny he just let us tell him about the restoration of Christ’s gospel then he told us. we set this goal to get 90 OYMs this week and that means we have to really talk to everyone but not only just talk to them but it had to be quality. That means we had to teach them about the gospel and invite them to do something. Sometimes they really aren’t interested so you invite them to keep having that faith in Christ and share it with everyone. I’ve learned as long as you invite someone to just act on something like their faith in Christ it helps people just to think about our Savior. A couple days later we had a lesson with Adriana she is 10 and her family is coming back in to activation in the church. After our lesson we were walking towards home and as we were walking I started thinking about my week and how much better I could be doing. At times I see myself slacking in the work. I was talking to my companion sister Allred and I told her how I was feeling. I told her that after our companion study that morning I kept thinking about how to be a “preach my gospel” missionary. We have to be worthy to have the spirit with us and I didn’t read that talk yet so when she said that I thought about that last couple weeks and I couldn’t really remember feeling the spirit super strong in any lessons or at the door. so when I was telling my companion that I was basically asking her “am I even worthy to have the spirit with me” and she told me she knows I’ve felt the spirit every day since I’ve been with her. I just cried. I told her I feel it sometimes but not how I thought I would. I realized I let the adversary make me think that I wasn’t worthy to have the spirit. She reminded me that the spirit cannot dwell in unholy places and I gained a strong testimony about how you just have to have faith that even the smallest promptings of the spirit are so powerful. I know I let the adversary make me think that I wasn’t worthy to have the spirit but I am. I know that’s how so many people feel when they don’t get those powerful promptings of the spirit that they feel unworthy but I know that as you repent every day and you keep Gods commandments you will always be worthy to have the spirit with you. I had a cool experience last night. We were knocking doors and I’m pretty sure every person we talked to yelled at us and slammed the door in our face but it was a cool experience when you really feel the Savior carry you from door to door. like He is telling you” I promise you that if you keep going in faith I’ll guide you to some one that is ready to hear My gospel” I felt Christ carry me last night and I had that faith that we would find some one that would listen and we did. His name is Will and he is about 29 or 30 years old. He is a trucker and he is trying to get his life back together. We told him about the Book of Mormon and explained that it’s about the people in the Americas. He asked a lot of questions and we told him if her reads the Book of Mormon and prays with the intent to know he will get that conformation from the spirit that it’s true. We gave him a chapter to read in 3rd Nephi about Christ coming to the Americas. We are going back next Sunday to follow up :) it was a big testimony builder about having faith that Christ will always be there even when you don’t have the physical or emotional strength to go on :) I know when you always have faith that Christ is there and you give him your weaknesses He promises He will make you strong! The spirit was so strong last night! one of our investigators came to church yesterday her name is Jen and she brought her kids. It was the primary program :) it was sooo good :) on Saturday we got to go to this women’s broadcast and we brought a (RC) resent convert Jessica with us and her little girls came too. I think Jessica really liked it. she kept talking about what the lady said and asked me questions :) on our way home it got really windy and we still had to ride our bikes home from her house. Good thing she doesn’t live far. lol we got home safe :)

Well also this week we got to do service on Wednesday. We did service at Badger Mountain we got to fill buckets up with dirt and walk it up or down the mountain and spread the dirt out. 

We are helping build a trail. It was so fun and we got so dusty. It almost started to rain and I wish it did. I love mud :) then on Thursday we went to the ARC we get to spend the morning with adults that have special needs. they are all so fun and they all told us what they are going to be for Halloween :) I got to go play basketball with my companion and some really fun people. Rob was my favorite. Me and him just passed the ball back and forth, it was a workout. lol then we went and just hung out with all of them and just had fun, sang frozen and I got my hair smelled for like 1 min he liked my hair spray and how it smelled lol and I guess that’s how he says hi. He was playing with Elder barbers hair it was cute. oh man I love these people! they are so sweet and we get to go back this week twice, once on Thursday and then on Friday our whole zone is going to help set up for the Halloween party :) oh and I just got and email that my sister Sage just had her baby! He is 8lb 13oz. 20 1/2inches! I’m so lucky to have a new baby nephew. Keep him in your prayers :) I know he is going to be a strong baby with a good mom and dad and big sisters :)



Love Sister Steen

Sams 3rd Birthday!

We saw this when tracting, It was a Muslim Holiday!