The Power of the Priesthood

Hey Family and Friends!

I hope everything is going well back in the mountains! I miss my mountains :)

So this week was kind of crazy...I have definitely learned that the Atonement isn't just for repentance, but also for healing. I'm not going to lie, this week was rough. I debated whether to tell you all because I didn't want to scare anyone or sound overly dramatic, but I felt that I needed to share it. Don't worry, things are fine now. My anxiety had decided to kick in for the last month and this week I definitely had hit rock bottom. Sister Wood became very worried about me and she started to see signs of depression in me. It was quite a scary experience and I just remember wanting to just give up. I just didn't feel like I was supposed to be here anymore and I was tired of getting rejected and everything else that comes with being a missionary. I told Sister Wood that I just needed to go home because no one wants me here. The "hard" part of the mission finally hit me I guess you could say. 

On Thursday, Sister Wood and I sat down and talked about what needed to change and what we needed to do to help me get out of this horrible funk. The last time I had gotten this low was when I was 15 or 16 and I remember that my family really helped boost me up and get me out, but they weren't here so I didn't know what to do. Sister Wood mentioned a priesthood blessing and I immediately said no. Throughout my mission I had thought about a blessing, but I just kept pushing it aside because I only wanted my dad to give me one. I have always just had my dad do it with help of neighbors or family so I just felt weird asking people I hardly knew. Sister Wood looked at me and told me she was deeply concerned and wanted to just help. She asked about having Tim Crager and his dad give me a blessing because I am pretty close to the Cragers. I just sat and thought about it. Trying to come up with an excuse or something because I just didn't want help. I wanted to try to get over this by myself. The excuses just sounded dumb so I gave in and texted Tim to see when they would be available this week. We planned on meeting at the church Saturday morning so I felt a little relieved.

Later that night, a little before we headed over to correlation, Tim asked if our ward mission leader, Eli, would give me a blessing that night. I told him that I just didn't feel comfortable having him give me one and that I wanted him to do it. He told me that him and his family were really worried about me and that it would be best to get a blessing immediately instead of waiting until Saturday. I took a deep breath and replied back with an agreeable response. Tim thanked me for thinking of them first and told me that Eli would love to help as well.

We headed over to Eli's house a little before correlation and he had asked me what was going on. I told him a brief summary and he was able to give a great blessing. I am short on time now (sorry) but I just wanted to express my gratitude for the Priesthood and the healing it does. I am doing better now and continuing to remember to stay happy and positive! I love you all and I will finish the next part next week.  love you!

Love Sister Emily Sarah Eaton

No super bowl for the packers

Hey Family and Friends!

It has been a great week! We had exchanges again this week and we also had interviews with President Cutler. My interview went so well and he said a lot of things that I really needed to hear! President Cutler just knows his missionaries so well and it's awesome!  One thing that really stood out to me that he said was, "Your homecoming will be a GLORIOUS day." That just was so awesome and I really needed to hear that. I have kind of been struggling the past few weeks. Lets just say homesickness has hit me a bit. I haven't told President anything about it though (Sister Wood might have) but he just knows and hearing him say that and other comforting things made me know that I can do this and I will finish my mission with no regrets! That is my goal for my mission. Have no regrets and to be better with patience and charity. 

It was so good to visit with President and Sister Cutler. Sister Cutler always reminds me of my mom and I love it so much! I feel at home when I see her.

Exchanges are always in interesting time. They aren't my favorite thing like I have said before, but I get through them. I was with Sister Asper this time. She is from Pocetello Idaho (hope that is spelled right...) and of course we talked about Idaho together. She will be going home in February so she is getting pretty excited. We had to do a lot of finding that day which is never my favorite but its got to be done at some point right. But sadly, no luck so far. Some guy told us he couldn't talk to us because he had to go feed his fish....hmm I guess he has a whole aquarium in his house. It was a good laugh. We also were so privileged to see a mouse mole thing. We were waiting to be let in a less active's apartment and there was a mole in the lobby. Then he totally squeezed under the door to where we were and Sister Asper jumped out of her chair. We opened the door to outside and it ran out. I couldn't stop laughing. I just sat there and watched everything happen. It was a pretty eventful day.

Sister Wood and I are also doing well getting less actives to come back to church! Please pray for us! So far so good!

Oh! and the Green Bay Packers lost last night...everybody is depressed today...crazy how peoples moods depend on football out here....oh well.

Love you all!

Love Sister Emily Sarah Eaton :) 

1/12/2015

Hello Family and Friends!

It has been a crazy week! Last Monday we went and visited a family that was in our potentials list. They were pretty awesome and are really into scouting already so they know a lot of the ward members and are involved at the church a lot during the week. Mark and Gwen are big football fans and are excited for the upcoming Super Bowl. Gwen is a Patriots fan and Mike is, of course, all for Green Bay! It will be interesting if these teams play against each other in the Super Bowl. Last night Gwen explained to me all about the play offs and such...I got most of it haha but I was sad to not see the Niners as a runner up. Thats ok though. We taught them the Restoration last night and they thought it was interesting. They have started to read the Book of Mormon and our next appointment will be next Sunday, before the game of course lol. We hope things will pick up with them soon!

We also were able to discover some teaching records that the elders in our ward had that was for a girl that the sisters taught a while ago...Her name is Areli. we don't know how but somehow the elders ended up with the first 2 parts of her teaching record and we only had the 3rd part. They had been teaching her for a long time and she was really progressing and then she kind of just dropped off the face of the earth! Well now we have all her records and we hope to get back in contact with her. She seems like a sweet girl and it sounded like she was really ready to be baptized. She is about my age i think. I think her family is a little uneasy about her joining though so that might be a problem but we hope that the Lord will soften their hearts.

Our recent convert, Eric, is doing great as well! He loves the singles ward and is becoming really involved in it. He just had an interview with his bishop about preparing to receive the Priesthood and we are all excited to help him be ready. He is so excited and we hope his family will have their hearts softened and have a desire to investigate and join the church as well. We hope they are starting to see the blessings as Eric has joined the church. 

I am starting to feel a little sore throat coming on..yay...Love you all! Have a great week!

Love Sister Emily Sarah Eaton :)

2015!

Family and Friends!

Happy new year! I can't believe it is already 2015 and that I am almost at my half way mark!! Crazy! Well this week was pretty interesting! I am really learning to be patient and not become so frustrated with this weather. It has officially snowed for real this time where the snow actually stays and the wind has started to settle in as well. This last week was probably the hardest time on my mission. The temperature started to drop like crazy and we had no more miles for the month. Those last 3 days of December seemed to drag on forever as we started walking to places and as no one would seem to be home. We prayed A LOT! Sometimes for that the Zone Leaders would call us back from 3 days ago so they could give us a little bit more miles for the last few days, but other times we would just pray that people would let us in so we could be inside somewhere. Most of our progressing investigators were in Lake Geneva and that is about 15 minutes away driving on the freeway. So we accepted the fact that we were stuck in Elkhorn for the next 3 days ( Don't worry, we do live in Elkhorn so we were able to get home safe every night). We decided to start contacting former investigators in Elkhorn since none of the investigators in Elkhorn were available. We called most of them so that we could be inside. A few were pretty receptive and we were able to get return appointments. It didn't help that it was New Years Eve also. But we got through it. I don't know how, but we did! On news years day we got miles again and headed to Lake Geneva. We had an awesome lesson with one of our investigators, Rueban. He and his wife have 5 kids and they all are very nice. I can tell Rueban really wants what is best for his children and he seems pretty interested in this amazing gospel. We taught him the Restoration and invited him to come to church. We also asked him if he were to come to know this church was true would he be baptized and he said yes! We are hoping to continue to work with him and start working with his family as well. There is a small language barrier so we hope we can get through to him even though we both speak poor Spanish. Him and his wife, Jackie, also switch off working so it is hard to teach them when they are both home. Please pray for this awesome family that they will be able to be taught all together and that we can get them all to church! I know they will love it so much. It is just what they need. 

On Saturday, we went over to one of my favorite less active's house. Her name is Liz and she lives with her boyfriend, Jason. Her and Jason have a daughter, Emi (2), together and she has a son, Ethan (11), from her previous marriage. Jason is an investigator so we are pretty much working on this whole family. They are awesome though and we love going over there. Liz works at McDonald's and told us about how she stood up for her religion one day at work. We were so proud of her because she has really been progressing since I got here. A few days before, we had shown all of them the full length Restoration movie that is like an hour long and I think it really opened up Liz's eyes about what Mormons have all gone through and I can see her really gaining a testimony about how the church is true. She always will say how if it wasn't true then it would have been destroyed a long time ago. Ya! She is finally getting it and its so awesome to see. Her and Jason do obviously have other things they need to work on as well, but I love to see people really change and become better people! 

This week is going to be awesome as well! Sorry for no pictures this time! I promise I do have some, I just forgot the camera cord today so next week. :) I love you all! 

Have a great week!

Love Sister Emily Sarah Eaton

Happy New Year 12/29/2014

Hey Family and Friends!

It was so good to talk to you SEE my family again! I was blessed to be able to have them all there and it honestly made my day! I missed you all and I am glad everyone is doing well. I am sorry if I weirded anyone out...I just couldn't stop smiling haha I was just so happy! 

This week was pretty great though...even though we had only 2 people signed up for us to visit..somehow we found other things to do and keep us busy on the holidays. Christmas eve we didn't have something until 6:30 that night so us and the elders decided to go to a local hospital and carol to the people there...it was kind of dead though...seriously no one was there. Then we made our way over to the Care Center and it brought back so many memories of when the ward and family would go next door and sing carols for the holidays....I remember never really enjoying it and hating the smell in there as well. Well I must have grown up because this time it was a wonderful experience and lots of people really needed us there. We all ended up caroling for about 3 hours, luckily though, we were inside the whole time. After we finished that, the Stringhams (members in our ward) said we could come over to help make cookies for the wife's clients. That was pretty fun. They were oatmeal cookies with Andes Mint Candies in them. We stayed there until we had to leave for our dinner appointment at 6:30. The Stringhams invited us back over in the morning for Christmas breakfast as well. This family pretty much saved our holidays haha

Later we went over to the Sandovals for dinnner. Them and the Hernandez family was there and they had a heck of a fiesta! They are both really nice families and we were able to experience a Spanish Christmas eve! I was surprised that by the time we went home none of us could speak Spanish yet...but I was also surprised at how much I could pick up from what they were saying! Yes! 2 years of Spanish paid off :p

That was pretty fun though and then on the way home is when I got my "RPM violation" from Tiwi haha oops. that wont  happen again. guess i just have to wait for the Audi R8 to do that...

Christmas morning we went back over to the Stringhams for breakfast. That is where the elders were skpying their family. We had a yummy breakfast and then Sister wood and i went to a food pantry to help out a little. we met a few people and shared the Book of Mormon with them. they liked it and we were able to give one out. then we headed over to the Cragers to talk to our famililas! it was great! Now for the new year! i am excited! Bring on 2015! love you all! have a great new years and party for me!

love sister emily sarah eaton