"So Freaking Blessed!, Corning's on Fire, #Miracles, Upcoming Baptisms!!"

BLOGGGGG....

Hello everyone out there in the universe. This week was pretty chill. No wait... actually this week was SO FREAKING BLESSED.  Like you guys, I was going through my journal and I was like, "Holy COW! The Lord is truly blessing us here!" I have never seen such direct answers to prayers and success my whole mission. Like.... wow. So let us chat about this crazy roller coaster week.

THE UPS...

I don't even know how to explain it to you all except that the work is seriously progressing here in this area. We have been out trying to do a lot of tracting and finding and all that good stuff and at first.... it was a bit discouraging if we are going to be honest. Such a large task and I really felt like this entire area of Corning was resting on my shoulders. There was some serious stress you guys. After a couple of solid break downs I realized this, "I CAN'T BE PERFECT AND I CAN'T DO IT ON MY OWN." I realized this week that I can never do enough or say enough or be as kind or as diligent as I would like to be. I am going to have doubts and discouragements and all those things... but you know what? That's ok because Heavenly Father doesn't expect me to do all that. All he asks is that I go and do. He asks that I try and that I put forth my effort. Then some how, miraculously, it is enough. And because we are out and willing and there, He makes it work. He puts people in our path, He answers our prayers and He makes it happen. That is what I have seen this week. I have seen my own flaws and inadequacies swallowed up in what Jesus Christ can do. So here's what He did...

1. We found SO MANY amazing potentials. Like almost every single door we knocked on was someone who either, wanted to talk to us, or knew someone who wanted to talk to us. I'm serious you guys, THIS NEVER HAPPENS. Just to name a few experiences:
For some reason I felt compelled to walk around carrying a Book of Mormon in my hand instead or in my bag like I usually do. Then we felt to knock on a door that we hadn't planned on. Then we had a really good conversation with a guy and he gratefully accepted the Book of Mormon. #miracles. THEN we were out and we stopped at a members house to use the restroom. They led us to a less active that we had never known about. We knocked on her door and it wasn't the less- active but it WAS a couple of ladies who wanted to talk with us about the gospel. Oh yeah and THEN we were out trying a potential and I thought "Have you ever tried this potential's neighbors?" Sister Fiefia said they hadn't, so we went and knocked and ended up finding this super cool lady who talked with us for like an hour and is interested in having us back. I'm telling you guys, these are just a few of the sweet miracles we've seen this week.

2. And what about some literal and immediate answers to prayers? One day this week I prayed that we would be able to find a family who would listen to our message, be ready and prepared for what we have to say, and have a desire to investigate and be baptized. I went forth with faith, even though we didn't have much finding time that day. We went out and the second door we knocked on was this super cool guy who listened to our message and then said "yeah, My family and I would love to try and come to your church sometime! But we have to make a deal that you will come to ours!" We said "deal!" But he sincerely wants us to come back and he wants his family to hear our message! #MIRACLES

3. Oh and also, we found 2 new 'gators this week. One was a member referral, (also something that doesn't happen here), and the second is the straight up cutest family on the face of this earth. They're So sweet and have a strong desire to hear what we have to say. WE ARE SO BLESSED.

4. Then we went and saw a great couple we are teaching a few times this week. Yesterday when we saw them we had a super sweet experience. We decided to reteach them the restoration because we felt like there was something more that they could get out of the message. As we were teaching, the spirit was super strong and you could tell that they were really understanding it more than they had before. At the end of the lesson we asked Brother M what he would ask Heavenly Father about our message if He were here. Brother M said "I wouldn't know what to ask. I guess I would thank him for your message and I would say thank you for letting me know its true." We were just kind of stunned so I was like...." So if you know that this message is true, let me ask you a follow up question, Will you be baptized?" AND THEY BOTH SAID YES! It was so good! You can really tell this is something they are truly searching for.  SO GOOD!

5. And not to mention that the elders had a baptism this week which was like the first convert baptism the Corning branch has seen in a while and it was so great! you guys, CORNING IS ON FIRE!

But like I said earlier, even though we have seen so many miracles and amazing things, there have been some bumps in the road. Satan is trying to bring us down because he knows that a marvelous work and a wonder is about to come forth in this area. Too bad he can't bring us down :)

....and now a couple of quotes of humor :)

"Well Sister Langford, I think what you need to go do is go out and buy yourself a big old banana split!" -President Wirthlin's counsel

"Ok now will you put your head back in the cereal box so I can take a picture?" -Member

"I've got Dia-betis" - Sister Fiefia

"Girls, you just put your hater blockers up!" -Random lady we met while tracting.

Well, I'm outy kids. Hope you all have a stellar week. Good things to come in Corning!

XOXO,
Sister Langford

"Goodbye Norwood-Hello Corning, Freeways/2 Lanes to drive in?, New Challenges, Rapping with the Comp, Dog Bites & Hoarders."

Hey everyone.
 
Oh my goodness. I can't even begin to talk about how dramatically my life has changed in the course of this week. Like, where in the heck even am I? Ok, lets talk about the week everybody.
 
Back  in the 'wood:
 
It was a hard goodbye to leave Norwood. There were so many people that I felt really changed my life and I had really grown close with. The Potsdam branch felt like family and Sister Davis and I were basically BFF's.... so it was a lot tougher leave than Cooperstown. We went around saying our goodbye's to Floyd, Nick & Anita, Nels & Jo, the whole gang. Definitely bitter sweet. And let me tell you, Heavenly Father knew I was struggling a little bit with this whole leaving business.  
So, He made it easier.
 
 Tuesday we had two investigators drop us AND one of our services dropped us because we introduced ourselves as "sister" (what the lame?) So.... it was a little bit easier to peace out Wednesday morning!  Haha. 

 
AND THEN I CAME TO CORNING.
 
Aaaaaaahh.... Corning. Corning is like the cutest place ever. And get this, THERE ARE FREEWAYS AND STORES AND PEOPLE and I was like, where even am I right now? There were multiple lanes that I could drive in and I didn't even know what to do with myself (I'm still adjusting).  So that was great. And let me tell you, Sister Fiefia is like, the coolest ever. She brings out my crazy ghetto side. It's been good. She has only been out for a few months and is still figuring things out, but I seriously love her greenie faith and fire. It brings it out in me. So that is AWESOME. 
 
But...
 
Corning has also been a bit of a struggle so far. Let's just say that all of the previous missionaries haven't been the most diligent or obedient and as a result, we only had 2 investigators and the members really do not like the missionaries. So.... sweet. But on the plus side, I recieved some pretty straight answers to prayers. I told Heavenly Father I was ready for a bit more of a challenge. Something that would push me and help me grow. I also prayed that I would be able to recognize my purpose in being in Corning. I know Heavenly Father heard those prayers because Corning is definitely a challenge,(its almost like opening a new area and training a new missionary), but at the same time I know He trusts me enough to give me this area and my purpose is very clear. I am here to get things going in Corning. 
So its kind of exciting at the same time. 
 
Sister Fiefia and I have been working our tails off everyday so far that I've been here and so far we have found 2 new investigators!  They are older couple who had been taught by the missionaries before (recently) but had been dropped for who knows why. We went over and had the most solid lesson with them where they kept asking us about baptism and how they are really thinking about it for themselves! like, HELLO SOLID. So, there are many blessings coming our way in Corning. WE ARE TURNING THINGS AROUND! 
 
In other news,
 
SO far in Corning I have....
 
-Cleaned a hoarder's house
-Free style rapped everyday with Sister Fiefia
-Helped with a poverty walk
-Been bit by a dog
 
So...,,,GOOD THINGS TO COME IN CORNING. 
 
Now, let's finish with some quotes...
 
"Ya! We are fishing for men..... wait! I mean fishers of men!" - Sister Fiefia
 
"This room is Vegas." -Brother Rodreguiz
 
"It's like going through hot butter.... well not hot butter because then it would be melted." -President Wirthlin
 
"Do I stress you out when I'm in your pressence? Well.... there's nothing I can do! I'm here!" -President Wirthlin
 
"Are you saying Polynesians are fat?" - Sister Fiefia
"Well... stereotypically yes." -Elder

"You guys like sitting on the disgusting couches. You are like 'Ya! this is what a missions all about!" - Brother Rodreguiz
 
Well, love you all! Have a blessed week :) #langfordout  #Ozoneswag

XOXO,
Sister Langford

"Warm weather, New Home & Comp, Sheering "Spitting" Alpacas, Hidden LA's in Norwood, & Awkward Closing Prayer."

BLOG!

Hello all my friends out there! Haha, oh man. THIS WEEK. Where do we begin? I have too much info to fit into one email... ok.... deep breath....

Let's talk.

1. So first big news... IT'S SO WARM. Like, drive with your window down, short sleeves, feet getting a little sweaty in your flats, warm. I LOVE IT. Which leads me to my second big news...

2. WE GOT TRANSFER CALLS. and well... I'm leaving Norwood. It's kind of a rough leave. Bitter sweet. I feel like it's my time to go and it's definitely what's best for me and the area, but as I've been saying goodbye to everyone it's been really sad. But on the plus side, I'M GOING TO CORNING, NY! I heard good things about Corning. Like, it's where glass was invented, it's super cute, its THE MOST SOUTHERN part of our mission (talk about a change) and (here's the best part) THERE'S A TARGET. Hello civilization! This may be the biggest "city" I've served in yet... and we can pretty much guarantee it's going to be tiny. Still, I'm stoked for a new change, to go down state (WHERE ITS EVEN WARMER)! and to meet my new comp Sister Fiefia! and speaking of calls....

3. YESTERDAY I CALLED HOME! Hey everyone do you remember that? Haha. It was too weird. Even weirder was the fact that that was my last call home before I'm back in the 801. Crazy. But it was cool to chat with everyone and all that good stuff :) (Shout out to Hollie and Nat for writing me a sweet missionary song ;) ) and on a completely unrelated note...

4. THIS MORNING WE SHEERED ALPACAS. It was super funny. I almost got spit on. Dude, it was a dream come true.

But anyway, back to the work.

1. We had such a bomb lesson with an investigator. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and she was so excited to read it! It's so encouraging to see someone so ready and excited for God's word. When we first presented it she was like "Oh, I will have to see if I can find time to squeeze it in.." and by the end she was like "I have time every night that I could be reading this!" SO GOOD.

2. Ok ok ok. Remember last week how I was going off about us finding less-actives out the wazoo. Well, welcome to this next fine story. So one of our investigators, (mentioned previously) told us to go and try to teach her mom. So naturally we did #referral.  Well she invites us in and we start teaching her the first lesson. She's feeling good about it and then she goes "Wait. You guys are Mormon's right?" and we are like "why yes, yes we are." Then she says "Oh I've been baptized into your church!" LIKE WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON IN NORWOOD! I kind of just mentally threw my hands in the air and yelled "OF COURSE YOU HAVE!" (don't worry that was only in my head!) But then she continued to tell us how she had been excommunicated but would like to come back! Oh, Norwood is too funny of a place.

3. Then we see another person (another surprise member of the church) and last week we had given her a Book of Mormon. Before we had a chance to say anything she said "I've been reading your bible and its made me so much more peaceful." It was a really sweet moment. I'm telling you guys, the powers in the book! :)

4. We FINALLY saw an investigator couple again. It wasn't a bad visit, but you could tell they were a little distraught. They kind of laid it on the line for us and told us they were never getting married or baptized. So that was tough. But we are still praying and fasting for them so we aren't giving up! I just pray that the new sister will be able to help them out! Aaah, missionary worries.

5. And we found one more investigator and had possibly THE MOST awkward moment.  We had met him once before. He's way nice and has a lot of deep questions. So we were teaching him the restoration, and in the new teaching method that we've been using you are supposed to ask them to offer the closing prayer and then have a moment of silence with them to help them feel the spirit. Rad. It should all work and create a super spiritual experience... in theory. So we introduce the idea and he consents that he will say the closing prayer. So we all bow our heads and close our eyes.... and wait..... and wait.... and it's just silent. He doesn't say anything for like 2 minutes. So finally I look over at Sister Davis and she is awkwardly looking at me, then we both look at Tom and he looks at us.... then says "well, thanks for coming over!" OH MY GOODNESS IT WAS SO AWKWARD! I tell ya, those North Country folk! Haha!

Well, that's the gist for this week... OH WAIT #quotes

"You mature.... but you never grow up.... or something like that. Its a quote!" -Elder

"Ya, he's an addiction recovery addict." -Elder

"Hannah Montana songs do everything a good sister training leader should do!"

Ok, well I'M EXCITED TO TELL YA'LL ABOUT CORNING NEXT WEEK. Adios.

XOXO,
Sister Langford

"Hola, Member or LA?, Great 'Gators, & Answers from the Scriptures."

BLOG.


Hola amigos! <--------------- (in honor of Cinco De Mayo!)

Oh man. This week was kind of all over the place. To be honest I'm not even sure it happened.... But we have a lot to talk about, so lets chat.

The goods.

So here's to news. We find out THIS VERY WEEK if one of us is leaving the great town of Norwood. I have been operating under the assumption that it was my time to go... but you seriously never know. I have been here almost 6 months and I honestly can't believe it's been that long. I was feeling kind of bummed because... well we haven't seen that many converts since I've been here. So naturally Satan tries to discourage. But then I was thinking about all the lives that have been changed, ESPECIALLY our recent converts and less-active members, and I felt pretty good about that. Like just this week...

1. S. We saw him and he told us that he had read almost all of 2 Nephi. I'm serious this kid is cruisin' through the Book of Mormon, which is so so sweet. He really understands it too and asks very intelligent questions about what's going on. So when we were talking with him, we asked him if he had seen a difference in his life since he had started reading the Book of Mormon. (Keep in mind we haven't really taught him anything BESIDES the Book of Mormon) and he said "Well, to be honest with you guys, I was into some pretty rough stuff before I met you. And seriously ever since I started reading the Book of Mormon, I haven't wanted any part of it and I've stayed completely away!" Dude, how awesome is that? My testimony of the power of The Book of Mormon is continuously being strengthened. It amazes me the power that one book has to change lives. IT'S SO TRUE!

2. P. Remember how we picked P up as a new investigator last week? Well, this week we went to teach her about the restoration. We had introduced it to her and had just finished saying that she would "want to make changes in her life to bring her closer to God, and be baptized..." and she goes "Oh, I've already been baptized into your church."

"I'm sorry.... WHAT?"

"Seriously P this is like the 5th time we have sat down and talked with you and you JUST NOW feel like you should let us know you are really secretly a less-active member of our church."
Crazy. So now we are working on re-activating her. I seriously don't know how we keep finding all the less-actives left and right. We think our new tracting approach should be "Hi, we are the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,  are you or anyone you know secretly a member of our church?" There could be a lot of success from that. But hey, Paulette is doing good! She is especially stoked to read the Book of Mormon (remember how cool and powerful that book is?)

3. A. We went to teach A this week and she had a surprise for us. You may recall a couple of weeks ago the story I shared about her asking me how I knew Heavenly Father loved me. Well, I asked her the question back and she told me that she didn't know. Well this week when we went over she had a list of 12 specific ways that she knew that Heavenly Father loved and knew her. It was such a sweet moment as she shared her list with us. Especially since one of the 12 reasons on the list was, "He sends missionaries to help me." that really made me feel happy. I really feel like I was sent here to strengthen . Like I said earlier, its easy to get discouraged when every investigator you have, who you think is going to be solid and get baptized, doesn't make it. But then, I think about how intensely I've seen people's lives change, especially theirs, and I know I was sent to Potsdam for a reason.

And the 'gators

the few that we still have are doing pretty good. I mean, here's the run down...

1. D. Still solid. still out of town :(

2. A and J. Doing really good so far! We taught them the Plan of Salvation and they really liked it and felt like it answered a lot of their questions!

3. C. We hadn't been able to get a hold of C and he had bailed on church which was kind of disappointing. So we decided to drop by and see if we could catch him at home. Turns out that Saturday night his tooth/face was really hurting so he went to the ER. Bad news, his tooth got infected and the infection had spread to his whole face. So they kept him in the hospital until Sunday afternoon (that's a decent reason to miss church), then on the way home from the hospital he dropped him phone in a puddle so he hasn't had a phone. It's crazy how hard Satan works to try and keep people from doing the right thing! Jokes on you Satan. So we are still working with him and have a ton of faith and hope in him!

4. N & J. We haven't been able to see in a really long time. We called them this week to see if we could stop by and they told us that "they would never be baptized into our church" because they don't want to get married. Ugh!!. But we are going to see them this week and hopefully we can figure things out!

5. A. Still doing good. :)

Bah!! We will find more people soon!

And then one more thing about the Book of Mormon.

I'm realizing now as I am typing this how much Heavenly Father has been strengthening my faith in the Book of Mormon recently. I had the coolest two experiences this week that involve that book. The first happened Friday night. We went down to Utica Thursday and Friday for a meeting and while we were down there I found out that one of my favorite missionaries was going home early because of health problems. I felt super sad for her and was feeling a little discouraged myself. I can't even describe it. But I was sitting on my bed just talking with Heavenly Father and letting Him know how I was feeling about the matter when I got a prompting to open my Book of Mormon. I did, and this was the scripture I read,

"Blessed art thou [Sister Langford]; therefore, lift up thy head and rejoice, for thou hast great cause to rejoice; for thou hast been faithful in keeping the commandments of God for the time which thou receivedst thy first message from him. Behold, I am he that delivered it unto you."  -Alma 8:15

I had never had such a powerful and direct answer given to me through the scriptures. I was amazed. You guys, Heavenly Father really does talk to us through the scriptures!

So then during church yesterday, I was trying to get direction as to what I should do to be better this week. Again, I felt compelled to open the scriptures and this was my answer,

"Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do." - 2 Nephi 32:3

It was such a direct answer. I had asked specifically "what I should do." Then Heavenly Father answered me saying "The words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do."

So moral of the story, when in doubt, ask Heavenly Father, then open your Book of Mormon and He will seriously answer you!

Ok. I will now leave you with some quotes...

"Don't go all Taylor Swift on me!"- A
"There ain't no free lunch." -President Wirthlin

"There are some missionaries who don't know how to handle failure, but some of you don't know how to handle success!" -President Wirthlin (he has a lot of faith in us haha)

"When I was a new missionary, I would see the Zone Leaders and I thought 'Ah! Zone gods!" - Elder

Well, adios my friends!

XOXO,
Sister Langford