Hey again!!!

Ok so this week was also another really hard week for me. It’s really hard because I just got here and met all our investigators and we had to drop almost all of them. I cried I love them all so much but I know it was the right thing because they weren’t progressing and they just need a break so they can see what they are missing. One of my favorite things on the mission is tracting. It’s super scary and people aren’t always nice, but when they are I just feel so happy and I just want to teach them what I know. But my trainer sister Davis hates tracting and that’s really hard. The way we tract isn’t the right way to do it. the past couple of weeks I just felt like I’m not doing what I’m supposed to. I’m just going through the motions and not really trying to find people. This is so sad because that is why I’m here to find, teach and baptize. I’m here to minister for God and so I’ve been praying so hard for help to know what I’m supposed to do and last night I got an answer to my prayers. I could not get to bed for the life of me. so I just closed my eyes and had all these thoughts going through my head and long story short I’ve been praying to know how to tract better and get more success and basically all I have to do is tell them to read the book of Mormon. Ponder the words in it and pray to know that they are true. My trainer like I said before doesn’t really like tracting and the way I learned to tract is from her. Pretty much we knock at a door tell them who we are and ask if they want to hear a message and if they don’t we say ok and walk away. Just the couple of weeks I’ve been here I know we won’t have any success by doing that. So I have to step up my game and do what I know I’m supposed to do and hopefully Sister Davis will have my back. I know that if people will read it they will know it’s true. They just have to take the time. We as missionaries and members can’t be afraid and shouldn’t be afraid to share our beliefs and be exited to share them. God is preparing people every day to hear the gospel. We just have to take the time to find them and not be afraid to minister to them. That’s what we are. All of us, not just me, we are ministers of God. We were put on the earth to find people and share our blessing of the gospel. We are so lucky we were born LDS. But now it’s our job to help people find their own testimonies. It’s going to be hard and trust me I know it’s scary but if we don’t try then we aren’t doing our job. I’ve realized that I had so many opportunities to share the gospel with my friends but I was too scared. Now I’m not. I love them and I want them to have what I have and that’s the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is my testimony I know that if you open your mouth and share your beliefs with people you never know who is ready to hear what you have to say. Don’t be afraid. I love you all so much. I’m growing so much as a person and I know my purpose! I know I have to be a leader now. I can’t be shy and just go with the flow. I’m taking off at a dead sprint and sprinting to the finish line for 18 months. I’m running this race and I’m going to win it :)

I’ve learned that we as missionaries can’t do this work on our own we need members to help us. We need you to all open our mouths and just say “I’m a member of the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints”. This is my belief. Invite everyone to go to church or give them a book of Mormon. Tell them to read it, ponder the words and pray to know if they are true. It’s not hard. We all know how to talk. We all know what we believe. We all know where we are going. Some people don’t. Some people are so lost and scared. We tracted into this younger guy, He doesn’t go to any church and doesn’t know why he is here. So many people are willing to listen. We just have to be willing to talk. So a goal for my loving family, friends and yes even My Nauvoo ward. Please open your mouths. Talk to everyone. Invite everyone share the scriptures with everyone. I promise you that if you do these things miracles will happen. You will sow an amazing change. We are here on this earth to serve. So let’s do it. Let’s all be ministers. Let’s all be missionaries. I love you and I know you can do it if I can. I’m a 19 year old girl talking to strangers. I know you can talk to people you know. Tell all the Steen family I love them and share this with them please. This is so important. I love you all. You can do it! You’re all ready!

The difference between a preacher and a minister is that a minister cares a lot about what they are telling people. I’m a minister I CARE A LOT ;)





Love Sister Steen

Hey!!!

February 17, 2014

ok so it’s been a super stressful week. We had Angie’s baptism so that was probably the source of the stress. It was my first baptism and all of her friends kept calling me and Sister Davis and getting mad because this wasn’t done even though it was all figured out and ready to go. blah old people are mean. lol anyway the day of the baptism we got a call saying maybe the songs are to bold because there will be non-members there and all this silly stuff that didn’t even matter and we told her that Angie didn’t want to change and she got all mad. So then we got to the church to fill up the font and turn on the heat in the chapel and one of the ladies that has been getting mad at us was there looking for a wheelchair. So we helped looks for it and couldn’t find it so she acted like it was all our fault. lol So we just let her do her thing and we got the font full got everything ready and Angie showed up and then one of the ladies came up to us all mad because Angie didn’t have her jump suit and we were super confused because Angie texted us like 2 days before telling us she picked it out so we went in the bathroom where the jumpsuits were and Angie was in there. We asked her about it and she was telling us it’s in that cupboard. I had the key and opened it. Sure enough there was her jump suit and we tried to tell her friend that she already had it and she just walked past us with a different one from the men’s room. blah so I got a little emotional. Then someone asked us when the Elders were going to be there. We looked at each other and were like this is our baptism not the elders. lol I broke down crying because I didn’t understand why it was so hard and why people are so mean. But then the baptism happened and we sang for Angie and it turned out amazing she looked soooo happy. We got some pictures with her but lots of missionaries before us came and I just met Angie so i understood that i wasn’t a favorite but Sister Davis has been through it all with Angie so it made me sad for her. that’s the biggest thing that happened this week.

The weather is warming up. I love it here and its funny everyone is like I’m not letting you go home and I’m like why would i go home. lol I had a headache for like 2 days I’m used to headaches so it just make me laugh. :) ohhh Bishop Black adjusted my back. It was a little strange but it made me feel so much better :) and our ward mission leader Brother Wood was giving us really good dating advice. He said I should write a book. lol I would read it after my mission that is ;) haha he is a cool guy I’m pretty sure his wife is pregnant but they haven’t told anyone so I’ll keep it on the DL until I know for sure lol

So i love tracting it’s my favorite thing to do. it’s funny how scared old people are of us. it’s like we are little girls to them and they are terrified of us. It makes me a little sad. last night we had to walk and it was super windy and i was wearing the wrong dress for the wind. i was freaking out making sure my skirt wasn’t flying up haha but it’s been a grate mission so far. The 15th was my one month mark. Wow! its already been a month. i haven’t had lots of time to write but I’ll work on it

P.S i keep having depressing dreams one was i got shot in the Wal-Mart parking lot by a Mexican but in the end he got baptized ;) and the most recent one was sister Davis chopped my hair off while i was sleeping. It was so depressing. i woke up and like couldn’t believe that i had a dream like that. i told her about it last night and it was pretty funny. she knows I’m growing it out for when i get home and hopefully get married. So if she chopped it off I would probably die. lol Just kidding but i have the craziest dreams here :) well the sad part of my mission is we are dropping like 3 people because they are not progressing and its hard because I just met them but I know it’s the right thing to do. I promise now that the baptism is done i will have a lot more happy things happen :) i love you all and miss you all.

Love



Sister Lacey Steen

I'm a Mormon!! I know it! I live it! I love it!!!

February 10, 2014
hey!!!!

ok so it’s been a really really hard week but i do know that’s only because Angie is getting baptized this weekend on the 14th yay. We just got her program done last night. She is kind of a crazy lady. She makes things way more complicated then then they need to be. lol me and sister Davis are just so glad we are companions lol on Saturday we picked up the sister training leaders at the stake center and on the way home they asked us if we read lock your heart. We said nope not yet why? and they just giggled and told us we should read it. Then we got to the end of our street which is a hill and we couldn’t make it up because of how bad it has been snowing the past 3 days. When I got out to get the ice off the windshield wipers the training leaders told my companion sister Davis that she needs to be careful about how she acts around elder Crane which mad me super mad because he is the one that needs to be careful because she doesn’t like him and he likes her and just the way they told her and the way they were acting was super inappropriate but anyway I’m getting a blessing today because it’s just been a really hard and depressing week and i don’t really feel like killing a sister next week ;) jk I wouldn’t do that but it’s rough. There are no cute elders here so I’m super happy about that so I don’t need to worry. All I need is to focus on is the Lords work.

This week went by super-fast. On Thursday we went to dinner at the Cluffs. they’re an awesome family. I’m super bad with names. I’m working on it but after we were done eating brother Cluff was asking me all these questions and then he was like have you met the Cluffs yet? and I’m like ummmmmm that name sounds super familiar lol and then I look at sister Davis and she’s like these are the Cluffs. My face got super-hot. I was so embarrassed. They just laughed lol they are an awesome family. I definitely connected with them. So 3 of sister Cluffs kids have diabetes and so does her husband. It was super sad hearing all the stories. It makes me so happy sage has never had a seizure. It sounds so scary and she told me they will never us a glucose pen again because it makes them super sick and throw up and just sounded so bad. So they squeeze sugar in to his mouth until he comes back. it’s so sad I love sage so much and would never want her to go through that, I shared a scripture with them about God is love 1 John 4:7-9 it’s one of my favorites and its February so it’s perfect. (Deus e amor) God is love. Sunday church got canceled because of the snow and President Wear called and said if your church is closed then make Sunday a day of rest and day of worship and a day of service. So that’s what we did, we helped Bishop Black shovel his drive and we helped this lady shovel hers. I slipped. My boots are definitely not made for the snow lol oh well. I am wishing I had my cowboy boots ;) umm we went out and got 10 OYM's, Open your mouths ,which was awesome and then we went to the church and watched one of the joseph smith movies. I found dad in it and showed my companion. I’m so proud of dad :) I love you guys and miss u sooo much!

So on Saturday we were trying to get 12 OYM's. The last house we went to a younger guy answered and for some reason i can’t handle when Sister Davis like poses and then says hi we are missionaries for the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. So I’m always saying it. lol I hate awkward silences and that’s all she does. I love her though. So I said that and I asked if we can share a message with him he said yes it was way funny because the whole time he was looking at the snow. It was turning in to a blizzard. It was crazy. He felt so bad for us. We had the car. Any way I shared my favorite scripture again and I said well I’ll share 1 john 4:7-9 because it’s almost valentine’s day and he just smiled at me. bahaha flirt to convert right ;) anyway after that I shared a short testimony about how we have to love one another to love God and how if everyone could love one another the world would be a better place and he agreed then I gave him our card and said to call us if he wanted to know more. We got to the car and he texted us lol he told us to stay warm and that we should probably get out of the snow soon. We told him thanks we will and thanks for his concern he said no problem and thanks for stopping by. Hopefully he will want to know more. Cross my fingers. Any way on Saturday we had an investigator. His name is Ted and his grandkids he has custody over. We really feel like they are ready to be preparing for baptism. I know Ted is feeling like he isn’t ready because the hatred he has over his daughter that is a meth addict but i told him that when he gets baptized it will be easier for him to forgive her and that that’s what the sacrament is for to renew our baptismal covenants. I really wanted to cry when he told me he didn’t want to be a hypocrite and be baptized and go back to the way he was. But he believes it all. He just is having a hard time forgiving his daughter and i wanted to tell him he is being a hypocrite by believing and not doing :( i really care about this man. He wants the best for these kids but they won’t get baptized until their grandpa does because they are scared and they have problems from the drugs so they are slow but they understand so much more then u would think. ugg I know i need to be more converted in to the gospel before I can help them and I’m working on it. It makes me feel like a failure as a missionary that i can’t help this man with this simple thing. I definitely need a blessing. i couldn’t get one yesterday because how bad the snow was but that’s ok. We are going to try harder to help this man and these kids. I want them to feel the love and happiness i feel in this church. I’m learning some Portuguese because my companion Sister Davis is waiting for her Visa to go to Brazil. She has been waiting 8 months. i didn’t bring my notes with me but i sent mom some so she can add it to this :) i will come home speaking some Portuguese ;) maybe. hahah My testimony has gotten so strong here and my reading has improved. No one knows I’m dyslexic. Sometimes i bring myself down when i have a bad reading day but my companion always says you’re doing sooo good though. So I’m working on not letting little things like that bring me down. This investigator Juan, i keep wanting to call him June, bahaha there’s my dyslexic side for you, sister Davis keeps laughing at me. We have a white board in the room with our investigators on it and in parentheses we put June for his name. hehe Juan he is awesome he really wants to know more and I really think he will be baptized :)

i might get to drive soon but I’m not too worried if i cant. i don’t like driving in places I’m not used to. the snow here really isn’t that bad and when we get stuck I’m like oh just back up and try again lol then it’s all good I’m from Nauvoo i got this ;) anyway i think that’s about it.

Here are some cute pics of us :) and the snow

Well i got to go. I love you all so much. Remember God is love and through him all things are possible. Open your mouths to all. Invite all to feel the love you feel from your Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. All you have to say is what church you belong to and miracles will happen. I know it in my heart and as you open your mouth have faith in God that miracles will happen. Pray always. Attend church always and repent when needed. Pray for comfort and pray for others. God can do all things as long as you have faith.



Love Sister Lacey Steen

First P-Day

February 3, 2014

Hey Family!!! I miss you all so much!!!

Ok so after i got off the phone with my family i was a little sad because i miss u all so much and i was scared to go to Washington. the flight was a little rough it was cloudy the whole way there. I met this elder that is going to kennewick and he is spanish speaking. he is tall and he had a dog with his girl friend. i tried not to laugh at him haha. Well i told him i like his watch and he took it off and let me see it. i asked him how do you read a watch like this and he said first you need to turn it the right way and ever since then all the elders on the plane make fun of me because i cant read watches haha. i struggle. ;P anyway we got to Washington and met the mission president :) he is soo cool. I love him and his wife. We all loaded up and went to the mission home. the sisters got to stay there that night and I'm not sure where the elders went but the beds where so comfy. i slept sooooo goood. before we went to bed we were just getting to know each other and and the mission president was giving us fruit snacks and he threw me mine and i caught it.Then he was like wow you're a baller. bahaha so after that he just kept throwing fruit snacks at me all different ways and i did eat them alllll ;) anyway he is the best mission president ever. When we woke up the next day we took lots of pictures. Then went to the church where we had an interview with President Ware to see who our companion is going to be and where we will be transferred first. well I'm In Yakama zone Yakama 5th ward and my companion is sister Davis. She is flipping awesome. I was so scared she was going to be like my last companion sister Andres I really struggled with her. i loved her and was grateful for her. She helped me love more but it was defiantly hard. So it took about an hour and 1/2 to get from kennewick to Yakima. we took the truck, they call it the seahawk lol after the football team. its a light blue truck. i had to sit in the front seat which at the end of that ride my rear end hurt so bad and i was in a dress so it was just super uncomfortable being in between to elders lol and we had 6 people in the truck 3 elders and 3 sisters. i met my companion in Yakima and we share a car so we had to wait for the sisters to come back. It started raining a bit lol then we finally got the car and went to our house. We live with bishop Black and his cute family. cool story so they use to live in IL area where our old stake president lives haha and she was in Nauvoo when they were building the temple haha we live in their basement its not what i was expecting but we have a big room and the bed is comfy so I'll be ok for now ;) then we went straight out and went tracking scariest moment of my life! but now i love tracting. I got home unpacked and then sister Black took us to Walmart so i could get bedding and some food. We have one lady on date to get baptized her name is Angie F she is kinda older and she is supper skinny. She was suppost to be done smoking Friday and so far so good. We keep praying that she can do it and i would love it if you guys put her in your prayers. She is on date for Feb 14th I did my first church tour 2 days ago and had the elders show us kinda what it would be like and after that i was terrified :9 then when it happened and Juan got there it was so different and he really felt the spirit. He is such a nice guy and i really think he will be baptized in the future. He isn't one of our investigators yet but he will hopefully be this week :) Tracting Saturday was awful lol everything that could have went wrong did. We had the car so we went to the far away places we couldn't walk and people have dogs everywhere here and so they have fences. so the first house had like a gate on the front porch and we didn't know how to get to the door because the steps where like not steps. it was dangerous looking haha We finally figured it out and the lady was really nice she didn't really want to hear what we had to say but we asked if she needed anything and she said no our house burnt down a month ago but we got everything figured out. She had a big dog but it was sweet. We left and it started getting darker. we got to this one house where it was so dark and there was a fence all around the house so we tried to open that gate and it wouldn't open it was so awkward. My companion broke the gate and we didn't know how to fix it in the dark so we made it so it wouldn't fly open and kinda just walked away. We went to a ladys house and i don't no how but i didn't see this like glass window thing on the ground and i almost stepped on it. i like stepped on the frame, saw it and did this weird spin out on it. Me and my companion sister Davis laughed so hard i was like shhhhh she cant know i just did that. I was so embarrassed haha she was a nice lady and was friends with people in our church but she didn't want to hear what we had to say. no one did. after that we just decided to pick the other sisters up. I was having a hard day so on Sunday. The mission president asked us to bear our testimony and i did. It was way scary but it was worth it. I was fasting and I started getting really sick so after church I went home and ate and took a power nap. Then we went to a less active members house. She is such a sweet lady. I cant remember names but she kinda gave us a thought she read off her phone and it was amazing. then she gave us a ride home because the super bowl was about to start and the mission president wants us all to do weekly study during that. So it was nice getting all the studying in and stuff. Sister Black forgot we were in the house and set the alarm so it went off on us when we went upstairs to eat dinner it was the scariest thing yet. I thought we where getting attacked. it was ear piercing haha o my days all these thing happened and i haven't even been in Yakima for a week hahaha.


oh and i also got attacked by a tree branch the second day i was here. Me and my companion decided that we struggle but its ok!! Every day a different family feeds us and they're all so nice. During prayer on Sunday they called me Sister Stine haha it was funny. Oh i got a text the other day saying my sister amber had a healthy baby girl and i was so exited i cried hahaha i just looked at the pics of her. she is a doll :) well its my first p day and I'm excited to shop and hang out with all the missionaries. i am sending letters today to all the family and i will work on sending more :) i love you all I will send some pics of my adventures!





Love Sister Steen