January 26, 2015

wow!! A week of miracles! I love my mission. Teresa was supposed to get baptized this Saturday but her daughter had to go to the hospital. Satan is working so hard to make it so people hold off getting baptized but its ok. I know she will next week :) On Saturday we had a lesson with a former, Debbie, she is so cute. She is an older lady and she invited her daughter and her granddaughter to come to the lesson. She had so many good questions and we were able to answer them all :D. We taught a lot and she ended up saying she really wants to learn more and said we can come over on Saturdays :) we invited them to come to church and guess what! They came! Well her daughter and granddaughter did, but that’s great! Debbie wasn’t feeling too good. We got 4 investigators to church!!! Ahhhh!! That has never happened on my mission. That’s a huge miracle. Going to church is a huge step for most people and once they go the spirit is always so much stronger and they want to go more. We had a lesson with a lady we are teaching. Her name is Andrea. We gave her some space a couple of weeks ago and she called and said she needs us to come over like now! lol so we went over there and she said ok I’m ready to do this! When can I get baptized? We said she has to make sure she has a good understanding of the things we teach her and so we set up a time to do that :). So she is on date for February 28th woot!! We have a mission goal to get 1 baptism per companionship every week. It will be good!! We went tracting the other day and found a lost member. He is so cool! He joined the church in Germany and he was in the military. He wants to come back!! ahh I love my mission! We had interviews on Friday and they were soooooooooooo good!! Ok funny story really fast. so we we’re picking up random cans so we can give them to this guy because he goes dumpster diving for cans. Well he said money but that’s what he meant. so I picked up a beer can and put it in a bag in are trunk and then we went to Andrea’s and right when we parked a cop pulled up behind us and my companion said she was freaking out because we have a beer can in the back of are trunk lol and I’m under age! I was laughing so hard!!

I love my mission!



Love Sister Steen

 We found the font

it was so foggy on our way to interview with President Wear 

 selfie with some of our district.  don't I look kinda funny!! oh well lol

January 19, 2015

This week was so good. We got to see Adams. It’s a really small town in our area just outside of Pendleton. A whole 3 miles out lol we don’t get to go there a lot but we got to on our way home from district meeting. I got the prompting to go to Adams and right when I was about to say something Sister Rasmussen said lets go by Adams. It was so cool that we both got that prompting. I’ve learned to never ignore the feeling you get because miracles always happen when you follow the spirit. :) We got in town and found the city hall/ library. the library was open and we talked to the librarian /medic in the area. lol we asked her for a map and she laughed she asked how do you get lost in a town like Adams? lol its true its way small but she still gave us a map. It even has some house numbers on it, pretty awesome. After we left we saw two guys outside and talked to them. the younger guy ended up being a less active guy he just got out of the military and is going back to college. he gave us his info and said we can comeback. We are hoping we can teach him when he is in town in Pendleton for classes so we don’t have to drive so far. We got to knock some houses and the librarian said that the school in town is actually a house so we tried by but no one was home. lol the other day we got lost trying to find where our dinner appointment lived. We never made it to dinner. The map cut off out of town so we ended up by this abandoned house. Creepy! lol but we found another house a couple miles away and knocked. No one opened the door so we went back to the car and it was locked. I laughed and said “really? You locked the car?” lol We are in the middle of nowhere. it was funny mostly because it was dark and I just wanted to get in the car fast hahah we ended up having dinner at Taco Bell woot!! lol I was sick on my year mark and felt really bad. Then all of our appointments canceled so I new that God wanted me to take a day and get better. The next day I was good to go and we worked hard. It rained all day Saturday it was awesome I love rain. We tried some referrals and we found a less active family. Their kids where never baptized so we started teaching them. it was so cool such a miracle :) we keep finding all these lost people and we are going to try and help them find their way back. :) We do role plays at every dinner it’s really fun. The families get in to it :) I gave my talk in church. I’m starting to get better at talking in church. It feels good. :) Sunday night, before it was time to go in for the night, we tracted in to a lady that said she took the missionary discussions before but she felt judged the whole time. she said she loves the Mormons and has seen so many loving people in her life that are Mormon the only thing she is having a hard time grasping is a living prophet. We shared our beliefs with her and read in the bible about prophets. We are going to go back and teach her more. She is so awesome! Her name is April.

It was a great week

Love you all xoxox



Love Sister Steen

January 12, 2015

Hey :D :D so guess what! I got asked to talk in church. I just got transferred here so I’m a little scared but I was given a note at dinner. It was really fancy and in the note it asked me to talk about Nauvoo and the missionary work there and my preparations to coming on a mission and my goals now and in my future and of what the mission will do for me. Ahhhhh!! lol Scary right? Ok I’m just not a public speaker. So I’m a little scared. Anyway I love it here. I feel like I’m still trying to know my investigators. I’m not sure if I have met all of them yet. haha but I think I’ve met most of them. I just found out from a member today that one of our “on dates” is using us. I’m not sure if that’s true but she is getting interviewed by are district leader this week so we will go and pray about it :) I met this really cool family last night. They are RC and we talked about the temple a little and I got the prompting to talk about patriarchal blessings. I butchered that haha Anyway we talked about the importance of it and the spirit was so strong and the wife was so excited and asked her husband why he hasn’t gotten his yet because it sounds so important and it is :) I love mine and look at it all the time. It’s helped me so much in the hard times. I haven’t taken a lot of pictures. I’ll work on that. My companion is the complete opposite of me so it’s interesting and uncomfortable at times. lol but it’s a mission and I’m dealing hahah Okay so I’m in a hick town that has a rodeo arena in the middle of town.

It’s huge and I guess it’s a grass arena so the football team also plays there. The football team isn’t that great. The rodeo is better lol that’s what I hear anyway. I’ll be home before the round up comes to town but I might come back in September to see it. My shower in the closet haha it’s pretty funny.

I have a really small living space but it is less to clean so I’m ok with it and I really only sleep there. It’s great though. The other day we were walking around the Walmart parking lot and this guy was working on his truck so we went to see if he needed help. we ended up talking about the restoration and while my comp held the flashlight I helped him get the fan belt back on. it was crazy but we got it on! Woot!! hahah my trial in this area is loving. Not the people but loving I guess my companion. Loving her enough to change who I am and be more like Christ. Loving this work and this area and my investigators enough to change and not be the same person I was before I came on a mission. Changing myself and letting God break me down and build me up to where he needs me. It’s going to be so hard but I know that through God I can do this. I have to work at it every second of every day. God loves us so much doesn’t He? He gave us this chance on the earth to grow, to make mistakes and overcome our challenges. ahhh I have so many but I’ve discovered that my challenges are my talents. Weird I know but my challenges make me how I am and make me have to work for what I have. a desire to become. I don’t know if that made any sense but oh man I’ve just learned that the gospel is so simple. I look at it like this God is so small but so huge that you can’t even comprehend and that is how the gospel is. How it’s so small. So simple, so easy that when you do it it makes sense but then it’s so huge that you can’t comprehend all of it at once and won’t until the millennium ahh the Lord loves us so much. we are so blessed.

Love sister steen

January 5, 2015 Happy New Year!

I am in Pendleton, Oregon :) I love it here. It is way smaller then Kennewick. I’m over 2 wards here too but they are in the same building. They are really small wards. we have a huge area and no gps and no map so sister Rasmussen is really trying to find places. lol someone told me that there is a mountain named Steen mountain here. I thought that was pretty cool. Then he told me it was named after a cattle thief and i laughed and said oh yeah sounds like the Steens ;) he just looked at me. I don’t think he thought it was that funny lol oh well! Lots of one way streets here lol but people here actually talk to you. A lot of humble people it’s kind of a nice change. We have had some freezing rain not too bad though. I’m starting to get to know the investigators here :) I love them already :) The first lesson we taught was with a member at our investigators friend’s house so we had an amazing lesson. Then on Sunday the ladies husband was talking to us and asked how he can help with the cleanliness of our investigator so that the spirit can be there. Me and sister Rasmussion looked at each other. We were a little lost and so he kept going and he explained that his wife came home in tears and wouldn’t let him near her until he took a shower and told us that we shouldn’t be in homes like that with feces all over and human bodily fluids and so forth. well I was holding back my laugh because it was pretty bad but we are so used to it that you just learn to love the people and help them make those changes in their life. We can’t just tell them we can’t teach you cuz your house is a mess. That poor lady she is so cute and vary innocent that was so hard for her. It was so funny trying to explain this to these adults that I’m sure have served a mission before. you know I’ve grown so much here. I’ve grown to love people here.

My comp is kind of different. I had met her before and it was awkward so yeah I cried big time when I was leaving sister Allred. when I got to Oregon I was thinking ok I need to figure out how to help my companion and serve her. I need to learn to love her fast or this is going to be a very long transfer. Well I prayed long and hard. Well at dinner they were asking us what the hardest thing about a mission is and she said companions so I already new things weren’t good between us and I didn’t know what to do. She is so different from me and she does things that drive me so crazy.

I wanted to just cry lol but i literally just said a prayer in my heart and decided to and love her. So we were doing companion inventory and it was one of the best ones I’ve had on my mission. I’m so grateful for the things I’ve learned from my mom or i wouldn’t have been able to be here 100% for sister Rasmesson. well she told me what I need to work on and that is talking to her after lessons and evaluating the good and bad of it. That’s not hard to do at all so I was happy that’s what I need to work on. Well I had to think of something that she needed to work on. She told me that one of her companions told her she didn’t have faith and that made her so mad. Well I’m also grateful for president Ware for telling me i didn’t have enough faith in interviews one day. I was so mad. I thought I have faith in Christ! When i calmed down and humbled myself I studied Faith in Christ. well he wasn’t telling me i didn’t believe in Christ he was telling me i didn’t have the faith to put someone on date or have the faith to drop someone if its best for the area and so many more things i didn’t have enough faith to trust that Christ knows what is needed and I need to trust in Him. well i knew just how she felt and I shared that with her. then I told her she needed to work on her OYMs her knocking doors and talking to people. I told her rush to the restoration! That’s the most important part of why we are here and they are waiting to hear it. God is giving us these chances to bare simple but powerful testimony about how that church was restored and if they don’t like our message well then they aren’t ready yet!! She also shared with me that there was contention with our sister training leaders. We are living in their area and they are living in ours. Well they switched because the STLs where in a trio and the place they live in is way small so it made sense. Well she asked them when we were going to switch back and I guess they have been cold with her ever since. Well I told her when interviews come along to talk to president Ware. I told her I don’t know these sisters very well but I know that its best to get the contention worked out if it’s going to mess with the work we are here to do. I love my comp so much. All she wants to do is do the work and be unified and I’m not going to drag her down. I’m not going to be that sister. I’ve been there and i don’t want to put here threw what I’ve been through.

mom I felt Gods love so much more the day I asked myself what can I do to love her and serve her. what can I do to make her mission all she wants it to be. How can i make her feel loved? How can i make her feel accepted? Mom I just want you to know you taught me that and it’s taken me well about a year on the mission but I think I’m starting to really understand.



Thanks. I love you. I love my new area. I love my companion and I love my mission!!!

Transfers/Christmas December 29, 2014

Transfers/Christmas

I went Christmas shopping for sister Allred and for our white elephant we had last Monday. It was fun sister Larsen stole my gap sweater. I picked in the pile then I ended up with a little basketball :) lol on our way to pday I took a wrong turn and I got lost in a trailer park lol after planning for the night we made gingerbread houses :)

On Tuesday we went trackting in the morning like always. No one was home but there where these dogs that were following us and there was a little dog that was limping so we were trying to pick it up and it wouldn’t let us get close to it. Then this guy told us he roams the streets all the time and he belongs to his neighbor so we ended up calling the dog a pan handler because it was begging but won’t take it if it’s not good enough. lol we recorded the other two dogs following us. it was funny. Sister Allred almost hit one of them. We went to the ARC for the last time. They had a Christmas party later that night. we went zone caroling after we got home and planned. Then we made sugar cookies

On Wednesday we took people the cookies we made. It was difficult cuz it was pouring outside and we were on bikes. I tried to put them in my bag but they all fell out in my bag so we ended up parking our bikes and walking. lol we had our last district meeting before the transfer. It was really good. We made goals and picked some scripters to help us work on them. We tracted the rest of the night everyone was eating dinner or getting ready to so no one wanted to talk to us. But we kept going and ran in to this guy he was so funny he talked to us forever. He told us a story that happened last Christmas with him and his brother. they went sleighing in the sand dunes and you could only imagine these to old guys flying through the air and the old guys brother just freaking out. lol my comp didn’t think it was as funny as I did but I thought that would be sweet. We had dinner with bishop Stewart. Sister Stewart made homemade lasagna!!! oh man! I was so lucky! She never cooks she always gets take out. We were pretty lucky then we got to call our parents for 5 minutes. My mom didn’t recognize my voice. after we got off the phone we went to the hollies Christmas party it was fun we ate and played songs on the bells we left early cuz it was making us home sick. we went to Jens to give her her 12th day of Christmas. we got her a CTR ring she loved it and hasn’t taken it off. lol her son Tyler, he is 11, was talking to us and we talked about the God head and how the holy ghost can help us do the right thing. he asked if the holy ghost was here now we smiled and told him yes he is and as long as you’re doing what is right he will always be watching out for him. We get to start teaching him after Jen gets baptized on the 10th. When we got home we just cleaned and got ready for Christmas

On Thursday me and sister Allred read the manger story in the bible and then opened presents. Sister Allred’s mom got us pillowcases with a scripter on it. She also got me some nice warm socks :) all throughout the week of Christmas I got to open up a gift from my mom. She sent me 12 days of Christmas and on the last day I got a calendar with pictures of Christ. I love it can’t wait to start using it. We went to the Monsen’s and skyped my parents. it was way fun to see them and how happy they are. then we had brunch and sister Monsen was telling us how her daughter woke up at 12 and saw that Santa had come already lol so they had Christmas at 12 am lol then we got to open our stockings and then we saw they had lots of presents for us too. They spoiled us. We love them so much. We got to go home and take a nap and then went to the Dunlap’s for dinner. We got to spend time with them then got home and watched some church movies until bed time

Friday was weekly planning. After dinner we had a lesson with Jen. She was telling us about how when she was praying she knew she needed to be baptized. It was a really good lesson on the word of wisdom. She doesn’t even have to worry about any of that : D then went home and finished planning.

On Saturday we got the call :( we found out that we are getting doubled out of Kennewick and elders are getting doubled in which is probably good for some of our male investigators. Sister Allred got called to be an STL just like my last comp sister Peatross. Then we cried a little. Then went and did service for the Gullion’s we helped build a fence. 

Then he took us out to Fugeamas they have amazing food and they cook it right in front of your face. The chef was so funny and we got to catch chicken in our mouths. Then we tracted the rest of the day and tried potentials but lots of people weren’t home. I got the other transfer calls and I found out I’m going to Pendleton with the cowboys just like my companion predicted lol maybe I’ll stay there for the roundup haha elder nelson my zone leader here is going to be my zone leader there lol still can’t believe we are getting doubled out. We called sister Monsen to tell her the news and she didn’t believe us. Her daughter over heard her and started to cry. We got to talk to her and tell her we will write her :) Sunday was nice we got to sleep until 6:30 then went to our meetings. We went home, made breakfast and did our studies. Church was hard. We had to tell everyone the news. Bishop Stewart choked up a little. He is one of my favorite bishops. He kind of reminds me of my bishop back at home, bishop Cluff. We got so say some goodbyes and had are last recent convert lesson with Adriana. We helped 2 people come to the waters of baptism here and I know God is happy with our work. I’ll work just as hard or harder in Pendleton. I can’t wait! New companion! New area! New Year! :)