February 17, 2015

Heart Attack!!

Andrea is still on date for 27th of February. Woot! we are praying really hard for her because she also has to be out of her apartment by the 19th so its really scary because she gets really stressed but if she reads and prays everyday she will be ok and she will get through it :) we had a zone meeting on Saturday and it was really good. We have a goal to have each companionship have a baptism in the month of March. I’m really excited! We are working with a couple people that if we are really obedient and pray hard and work hard we could make that goal. We have a goal to get 8 member presents each week. That is where a member goes to lessons with us. We haven’t had a lot of success with that so far. It is going to be really hard but it’s achievable. We just have to want it and work for it. The spirit in that meeting was really strong. Me and Sister Rasmussen were asked to give a training on confidence in Christ which is basically faith. lol We talked about what confident missionaries look like but we also asked the missionary’s what confident missionaries feel and sound like. Me and Sister Rasmussen were talking and we realized how much our testimonies have grown from when we first came out as little greenys to now. I thought how when someone tries to bash or gets upset or says something mean my testimony is no longer shaken. I have built my testimony on a strong foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Teresa fell of the map completely :( we tried to stop by and call her but she won’t answer the door or her phone :( we are still praying for her. We have zone conference coming up on Saturday I’m excited. I’ve been sick since Saturday. I’m on medication so hopefully I get better soon :D I was looking for the link to the talk being a consecrated missionary and i couldn’t find it but I’m going to make copies and send it to my mom and to some of my really good friends out serving missions.

if i wasn’t sick for 4 days I would have been able to tell you all I got through the whole Book of Mormon but I cant I have 2 chapters left. I’m so excited to finish and start over and really go through and mark it up and just get more revelation for myself :) I know this church is true I know that if you read the book of Mormon with a open mind and a willing heart to really know that you will gain divine knowledge. My mission has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my whole life but I’m so grateful for the growth I’ve made. I’ve been cut down to the core and when I think i can’t be cut down anymore God lets me know that I still have a lot of growing to do. He has made me a stronger person more loving, kind, patient and bold. He has helped my testimony grow on a foundation of Christ and i couldn’t thank Him enough so I’m going to serve him for the rest of my life just like He has asked us all to do. There are many ways to serve but we have to be willing to do it :D

I love the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love this work.



Love Sister Steen

 District Meeting :)

 This place looked like a jail. it was so sketchy I was scared to knock. Then we got kicked out because this guy told us it was illegal to be on the property and he was going to call the cops. Imagine me going to jail for knocking on doors. We get that a lot. They don't have signs posted so we are going to talk to the manager and see if it is ok if we tract there.

 a lady gave us chocolate cigars

 We were teaching a young man who is living with his grandpa and when we were waiting for him to come home his grandpa showed us his bike and I got a picture with it.

 My circle chart of how long I have left, the companions I served with and where I have served.

 Today we went to the temple

The elders in our zone

February 9, 2015

This week was a good week. Not a lot happened but one night we were tracting because an appointment canceled and we only had 5 book of Mormons left. We were going to be careful who we gave them to. Then every person we talked to wanted to learn more and wanted a book of Mormon they exactly 5 people. We had the perfect amount! Funny thing about it is that they were almost all young single adults so we had to pass them off to the sisters over YSA. lol then we found 2 more books in the car so we were being blessed. There is nothing worse then being a missionary and not having a book of Mormon. It’s like this saying hey we have this awesome message that the gospel has been restored by a living prophet called of God and the book of Mormon is evidence of that. Then them saying can I have one and you saying oh we don’t have any. It hasn't happened yet but I was scared for a second lol the Lord is looking out for us. We will get more books of Mormons on Saturday. Andrea is still on date for the 26th :D she is getting slammed by the adversary the poor girl its cool. we always know when she reads because she is more calm and her kids are calmer and the lesson just flowed but when she doesn't her anxiety flares up and her kids go crazy she has lots of deep questions and we try to answer her questions in a simple way she really wants to go to conference when it comes :) she missed it last time because her anxiety its really hard for her to go places I’m so happy she makes it to church every week :)

So we are working with a part member family Jamaica is the non-member and Senon is the less active member they came to church for the first time ever and we were freaking out. She is so awesome and her husband keeps saying that when he gets worthy he can baptize her ahh that was the coolest thing to hear. They are progressing slowly but they are progressing!! we are working with a lot of awesome people but those are the 2 that are really solid :) Teresa, the one that was going to get baptized couple weeks ago, vanished off the face of the earth :( that’s been really hard but I love this work I love serving the Lord. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Transfer calls came and I’m staying 6 more weeks here in Pendleton, Oregon. Woot! I’m excited! I get to stay with my companion sister Rasmussen :)

I’m working on being a consecrated missionary. There’s a talk on mormon.org about it. It’s really cool and that’s what I’ll be working on the rest of my mission. I want to be able to say I gave the lord everything I had and I endured to the end :) I love that it says consecrated missionaries don’t hold any white flags we never surrender :) this is the Lords work and I am called of God. I am a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ



Love Sister Steen

February 2, 2015

This was a really good week. Andrea is doing so well. She is going to move so the elder’s quorum is going to help her on Saturday. She told us she is going to marry a member. I think she is battling with herself on that. She really wants to do the right thing and go through the temple. It’s so cool when she reads the book of Mormon you can see a difference when she doesn’t. We usually can tell the moment we walk in her house if she has been reading or not. She has been doing really good keeping commitments and doing all she needs to to get baptized. We might move her date up if she keeps progressing :)

we were trying by people in this apartment complex and I had a feeling to go try our referral we got last time we were there. It ended up being a really less active lady her name is Lacy. She has some drug problems but she is going to get help and wants to come back to the church. It was a really interesting lesson but the spirit was there. In a way I was able to understand how she feels. I mean I never did any of that but the trials I had to go through from the choices I made really helped me help her out. She had a really rough life and I can’t tell you everything that was said but the spirit was strong and I know she can come back. It was a really emotional lesson and after it Sister Rasmussen asked why I was crying. I told her that I just felt the spirit and that I didn’t know what to say to Lacy but when I opened my mouth it was filled. I said what she needed to here and that’s it. I told her how grateful I am that we have trials in our life so we can understand some of what people go through and it really helps you be more sensitive to their needs. We got 2 new investigators Tawna is dating and investigator mark and he hasn’t been home so we started reading with her and her granddaughter and the spirit was so strong so we set up a time to go back she has opened up to us a lot and it’s been cool to see them change :)

So I’m almost done reading the Book of Mormon I’ve listened to it but I’ve never read it by myself so I’m in 3 Nephi and wow my testimony of the Book of Mormon has grown. I never realized how strong the adversary is until I got to Alma and all the wars that happened because people stopped looking to good and they got prideful and selfish and all they cared about is the things they had, the wealth. But when they did that they weren’t protected by God anymore because they decided they didn’t need God. Wow its crazy to see that now how so many people don’t even believe there is a God. I talk to about 20 people a day or more and literally more than half either don’t believe there is a God, don’t care if there is a God or not or just don’t love God enough to talk about it. And they wonder why their lives are so rough. I really have a strong testimony that if you have a faith in God if you love God enough to testify of Him he will protect you. He won’t stop bad things from happening to you but he will protect you if you have faith and trust Him. You don’t have to be Mormon to love God to worship Him to acknowledge all the things He has done for you, to fear Him and not man. Man is nothing compared to God. I wish more people had the courage to say I AM A CHILD OF GOD and really mean it because that’s what we are. We are children of God. He loves us. He gave us this opportunity to gain a body and to progress in this life to make choices and to learn from our mistakes. God loves us enough to cut us down to make us grow from our trials. It’s our choice to learn form that trial or blame God. I promise if you try to learn from them and not blame God you will be so much happier and you will grow from it and you will eventually be the daughter or son of God that he wants you to be. The question is are you willing to let God cut you down to the stump first? Do you love God enough to learn from your trials?. wow I’m pretty sure every transfer He cuts me down over and over and let me tell you.. The day I decided to learn from the trials is the day I really started to grow on my mission. You can’t progress if you don’t let yourself. I love my mission. I love the Book of Mormon and the truthfulness of this restored gospel. I’m grateful for a living prophet that leads and guides Gods children just like in the Bible and Book of Mormon. Why wouldn’t God still call prophets? God still loves us doesn’t He? God still wants us to learn new things. We are constantly progressing. That is God’s gift to us, progression. We choose to use it or lose it. I’m grateful for a loving family who supports me on my mission and an amazing friend, Alyson Taus that has always been there to cheer me on. I’m grateful for all of you that have read my emails and are with me in my adventures. I will never be an amazing speaker but when I go home you with see the light of Christ in my countenance. I love the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints. I know it’s the one true church with the priesthood authority in it. In Preach My Gospel in the first vision Christ tells Joseph Smith that all the churches were wrong and all their creeds where an abomination. I was thinking I would never tell someone that when I was a greeny fresh out in the field but that just shows that I had no faith in my Savior or in my church, in this gospel or in myself and I just want to share a simple powerful testimony that God lives and Jesus Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of the world. That Joseph Smith did see God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ in the flesh and that Christ bore a powerful testimony to Joseph that the churches on the earth were an abomination. He said in His own words that they draw near to me with their lips , but their hearts are far from me. He goes on to say that they teach from doctrine the commandments of men having a form of godliness but they deny the power there of. I know this is true. I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of the restoration and was given the priesthood (power and authority given to men to act and speak in God’s name!) I know that you can know this is true by reading the Book of Mormon and asking God if it is true and by acting in faith you can know the truthfulness of all things. amen

Love Sister Steen

 my district

 me being a dork

  cutting down a blackberry bush for a potential investigator :) 

 put that in by my self it hurt lol 

 after we got it all cut :)

 we were meeting a less active lady at the library and sister Rasmussen took a pictire of me talking to her on the phone.  I was by this sign lol kinda funny :) 

  Transfers calls are on Saturday and so we as a district did transfer predictions. That's is my district leader Elder Ojeda.  He is pretty cool!

 Sister Rasmussen the first time she has ever held a fish. it was so funny :

 Alyson sent me a birthday/Christmas package and she made me an L with memories of us on it. 

I LOVE IT!!!!!

in this picture there is a cloud of fog that we are heading towards.  it looks really sketchy and its funny in Milton free water where we had district meeting it was so foggy you could hardly see and in Pendelton it was a sunny day lol 

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!!!