I love the Temple! 11/21/14

Hello Family and Friends!

I know its Friday and I am emailing..weird huh?! :) Well today Sister Smith and I had the opportunity to go to the Chicago Temple with some members and it was a blast! We actually just got back from it all and it was all so renewing and wonderful. Sadly, I forgot my camera cord today so no pictures will be sent out today :( mybad.

The experience was so amazing though and Sister Smith and I stayed in the Celestial room for the longest time. We were trying to soak all we could in before we went back out into the world. It was so wonderful to be able to sit in peace and quiet and just listen to the spirit. Inside the temple was beautiful and we could have stared at the chandelier forever. The Chicago temple is pretty small. It is about the size as a Utah stake center, but it still holds up to its beauty. Although it isn't my favorite temple, I still will have a special place for it in my heart as our experience was so renewing. I truly needed it on my mission. I am so grateful for the opportunity we had to go and it was a wonderful and beautiful day to go as well. We also got to stop at a place called the Oasis which had a bunch of fast food places that are inside a bridge over the freeway. I was able to get Panda Express which I have been craving since I left home...That was the last meal I had at home for breakfast haha Thanks Natalie :)

Tomorrow is going to be a wonderful day as well. My first baptism and I am so excited! Eric is 22 and he is the first one to be baptized in his family. We hope to start teaching his family too very soon. He is so prepared to be baptized and he has such a great testimony. Pictures will be included on Monday :) I know I have already said it before, but gosh I just love this gospel! It is sad when people don't accept it because there are so many things they have no idea about that they are missing out on. I want to help those people to be able to open their eyes and see that things can be better even in this evil world. I know I am on a mission to do that and I am so grateful to be here. I love you all!

Love Sister Emily Sarah Eaton :)

 

Week 30 Baptism and the Temple! 11/10/14

Hello Family and Friends!

It was such an amazing week and Sister Smith and I are both so excited for our baptism coming up this next Monday or Saturday the 22nd...we still need to figure some stuff out, but that's beside the point! It will be my first baptism!!! geez only took 7 months! Which reminds me! I hit my 7 month mark yesterday and it was awesome! 7 month still is kind of little compared to those 14 month people haha but I am growing so much and I love it :) Also President Cutler thought it was funny to give me another companion that would be going home....So I get to send Sister Smith home Dec 18...its not that it is bad, but my trainer was going home as well and it just makes things 10 times more hard, but this time I know how to be stronger. Sister Smith isn't too trunky anyways though so I guess it could be worse. I know everything will go well though and we can't wait for Eric's baptism. Also we are most likely going to the Chicago temple Nov 21 with an awesome member, Vicki Crager ( by the way Mom, I have found more Star Valley people that you might know! I will get the info and get back to you). The plans aren't finalized yet, but if we do go it will take out our pday..I don't really know how all that works yet though. But I am excited because I really miss the temple!

On Tuesday and Wednesday I went on exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders and it really went so well! I was able to invite a family in Kenosha to baptism and I didn't mess up! Sister Smith stayed in Elkhorn with Sister Reed and I went to Kenosha with Sister Silcox. I feel like I really was able to grow a lot more and Sister Silcox and I really hit it off. She is going into Fashion as well and she has a missionary in Mexico! It was so awesome to be able to relate to her. I asked her where in Utah she found a fashion program and she said she was doing a program though Utah State that lets you kind of create your own major and then she is able to finish up her fashion classes at Salt Lake Community College with a Bachelors in Fashion. I was so speechless when I hear all about this...I had no idea that there were schools that offered this...I am going to still think about it and when I get home I still want to research out other things too, but I want to look into it. But besides all that...My testimony strengthened so much on this exchange. I was able to experience being a true BOLD missionary. I have always struggled with being outgoing and such, but I really saw the change in me this time. I felt like this was really a successful exchange and I have been trying better at being that same awesome missionary in Elkhorn. I am excited to be here and work. Elkhorn is such a great place and there are so many people that are ready here. It also is such a small world here where everyone knows everyone so we find ways to teach more people that way and soon this whole town will be Mormon! :)

This weekend was also Stake Conference for the Milwaukee Stakes and it was so good. I love the way they do the talks now. (Maybe they have always done them this way and I never paid attention though :/) The recent converts will always speak in both sessions and it is so awesome for our investigators and us to hear their strong testimonies. I have just noticed that doing this really strengthens and builds everyone's testimony even more. We were able to hear so many strong testimonies that haven't even been in the church a year.

 

I know this church is TRUE! I really can't imagine not having the gospel in my life, probably because I have always been in it, but seriously I wouldn't be able to stand on my own two feet if it weren't for Jesus Christ and what he did for each and everyone of us. I really love this gospel! It is truly the key to happiness in this life and even after that. I hope my family knows that I really have a firm belief in this church. I want them to know that I really love them and I know that this whole "eternity" thing is real. I want to see them all in that Celestial Kingdom :)

Thank you everyone for the support and love you have given to me! This mission is so amazing and it is just what I need. I love you all and hope you all have a great week!

Love Sister Emily Sarah Eaton :)

 

My district 

Sister Eaton on far right and comp. Sister Smith next to her 

7 months down for Sister Eaton

 14 months for Elder Taylor 

Week 29 Enduring to the End 11/3/14

Hello Family and Friends,

We had a good week this week, but it was a bit of a struggle. I have been sick now for about 2 weeks and it wouldn't go away. Mom, I tried everything! But today I am finally starting to feel better and so things are looking up now!

We were able to get a baptism date last night and we are all excited! Eric has been investigating the church since July I think. He really loves the Book of Mormon and is so excited to be baptized. We all decided that he will be baptized on his birthday, November 17. It is a Monday, but we decided to make an exception since he wants to have a "Re-birthday". We are all so excited and think it will be an awesome and spiritual baptism. Eric already has such a strong testimony. I love to see the changes people make out here! Its so awesome to see them from day one to day 100! The progress that is made is so amazing. With God's help anything is truly possible! 

Halloween went well, I mean it isn't exactly the funnest on a mission, but we manged to have some fun and get candy. Thank you family for the package you sent me! It was perfect and just what I needed. I will send pictures of it. Rachel, those pictures of Ruby were priceless! I was dying laughing. Our ward had a Trunk or Treat Halloween Party on the 29th so we went to that and had a lot of investigators and potentials there. It was good to have everyone there and to be fellowshipped. Sister Smith and I tried our best to have a Halloween costumed put together. She was Ana from Frozen because all the little girls here think she really looks like her and I was Little Red Riding Hood because of my red coat. 

We have some bad news :( Our mission president emailed us and announced that there are some complications with the iPads so it will be a while until they arrive. I am pretty bummed because I was totally feeling that they would be here this month, but he said to not even count on anytime before January...so darn it, but oh well. It is just annoying that they keep saying things and then they don't happen. I guess this is where patience comes in :p

Right now the work is booming in Elkhorn though. People are ready and we are getting the Lord's work done here. We have an investigator, Heidi, who knows EVERYONE! So we get a lot of investigator referrals from her. I am doing well and learning a lot. This mission has been such a great experience for me and I have gone through many challenges. I know there are more to come as well so I try my best to look for the good and be positive. I miss you all so much and being sick has been pretty crappy because I have become a little homesick, but I know that if I keep going I won't regret it and many blessings will come from it. I love you all so much! Thank you for all the letters and support. Have a great week!

Love Sister Emily Sarah Eaton

Halloween- dressed as Little Red Riding Hood

 Looks like she got our package, zebra footie jammies! 

 First snow on Halloween 

Week 28 Cough Achoo

Hello Family & Friends,

Oh wow this week had been pretty crazy. Guess who has a lovely cold!! yup I do..ugh this is like the first thing that had made me homesick. Last night I got no sleep at all. We went and bought medicine today so hopefully i will feel better soon. Mom, I miss you taking care of me and I really miss being able to just stay in bed. There is no time to take breaks. Too many appointments! Aw oh well...guess it will help me become tough right? Like Mom would always say..."just buck up!" I still wonder where she got that from..

So I hoped you enjoyed the flower boy story from last week. Don't worry, everyone here thinks I am 12...so I am pretty safe. I told Sister Smith that she needs to start dumbing down and acting more immature because she just got asked out AGAIN last night by another investigator....he thought she was much older...like 20 years older...haha 

We are staying safe though. I promise we are never alone with these sketchy Wisconsinites. I know we have to be smart and be cautious of people. Mom and Dad, you know how paranoid I am about people kidnapping me. So I still put up my guard. We also pray A LOT. 

We are hoping to get new baptismal dates this week. We have an investigator named Eric and he is really close. He really has enjoyed the singles ward and he actually went on a date this week with a Mormon girl and he told us it was "wonderful" so thats good. :)

Yesterday morning I totally biffed it down the stairs of the apartment. Sister Smith thought I passed out because i haven't been feeling well. It pretty much hurt a lot and I got some scrapes but we keep laughing about it. I am so clumsy sometimes. 

Last week for Pday we went and strolled around Lake Geneva! It was wonderful and beautiful. I got a cool Lake Geneva hoodie! Hallelujah for warmth. No more souvenirs for me for a long time.... :)

It was fun to look in all the shops though. I felt like I was back in San Francisco again :)

Today we are just going to relax and let my body rest...I would much rather have my head chopped off at this point. Mom I bought bean with bacon soup today:) Hopefully that will help me feel better. I just want you all to know that I have been able to maintain my weight so far! :) hehe 

Ok sorry for no awesome story today. I must go and feel better.

Pray for me.

Love Sister Emily Sarah Eaton

Countdown for Sister Eaton

 Countdown for Elder Taylor 

Week 27: Flowers at Church

Hey Family and Friends!

Wow where do I begin?! Well this week was pretty full of events haha Sister Smith and I have had a lot of fun. I wish she wasn't going home so soon because she makes things fun, but we also get things done here. Elkhorn is definitely moving along faster than Green Bay was. We were able to have some really good and spiritual lessons this week. We do have 2 baptismal dates, but we most likely will move those back since the two girls we are teaching aren't quite ready yet, but we have a lot of potential here and I am just so excited to see a baptism here and my 1st one on my mission! It is going to be awesome and it is going to happen soon. The members here are awesome and love us all to death! They really use us (in a good way haha) and they love to feed us too <3 My family must be putting me in the Temple prayer roll or something ;) Thanks guys :)

I have met so many people and we give Book of Mormons out like crazy. It is just so cool and I love that people show genuine interest in it here. On Saturday we were like 10 minutes away from the border! It was so cool and we almost drove down there to take a pic, but we didn't have enough time. On our way back we saw this guy on the side of the road and stopped and talked to him. He has traveled all around the country and it was so cool. He was pretty nice but a little crazy too ha but we gave him a Book of Mormon and told him that it could help find his way. Then on our way home we stopped in Fontana. Fontana and Lake Geneva are those most gorgeous cities around this time! We were driving home through it all and we just had to stop and take pictures! These two trees were the most gorgeous things ever! Sister Smith was able to take some panoramic picture and it turned out amazing!

On Sunday we had quite an adventure...So a guy, Miguel, that the sisters met before has come to church twice now, which is great, but he is a little flirty and has a huge crush on Sister Smith so we have been trying to pass him off too the elders but he wont meet with them. So right now he just comes to church. We can't really teach him. Well....Sunday, (get this, it was ward conference so all the stake presidency was there) Miguel walks in late with a BOUQUET OF FLOWERS in his arms and walks all the way to the front where we were sitting and gives them to Sister Smith...EVERYBODY SAW THIS! Oh my goodness, I couldn't hold my laughter in, but I had to because there was an investigator sitting by me as well...Sister Smith did exactly this...Threw them under the pew in front of us and turned the color of her hair. She told Miguel to sit down and probably started freaking out in here head...they were totally roses too...

The ward mission leader offered to talk to Miguel for us about all this...Hopefully that will help, but he will still want to investigate...guess we will know if it was just because of Sister Smith. I told her to stop dressing cute. Everyone else told me I didn't need to worry it for me because I look like I am 15...ugh its a blessing and a curse...Good thing I already have the One though :)

Anyways after Miguel left and church was over...everyone had a laugh and we were all excited to have journal worthy stuff to write about.

Today we went to Lake Geneva and it was so beautiful. A lady in the ward gave us hair cuts and my hair is so soft again! yay!

We should be setting some new baptisimal dates this week so I am excited :) 

Oh! on Friday we also got to see "Meet the Mormons"! I bawled and bawled and I loved it! If you haven't seen it yet...go see it!! 

I love you all! Have a wonderful week! 

Love Sister Emily Sarah Eaton

Week 26: Elkhorn!

Hey Family and Friends!

This is so weird...I am not in Green Bay anymore and the things that we do down in Elkhorn are way different! haha but i am surviving. So wow a lot has happened and I don't even know where to begin, but everything has gone by so fast and I can't believe I am in a new area and I have already been out for 6 months! Yay! (Dang i don't have the countdowns ready yet :( I will get those soon Rachel and Cody haha).

Anyway so I am like so busy now, its not even real. My new companion is Sister Smith. She is from Rexburg Idaho and we like to talk a lot about Idaho :) Turns out that her dad is best friends with Kendall Christiansen! So we had a a long conversation about Rorie and Kendall. By the way where are they now? Last I heard, they moved to Florida. I would love to get their email or address mom. thanks. 

Sister Smith is 20 just like me, but she will be going home in December so she is towards the end of her mission. We have been getting a long quite well. Last night we had a long conversation about our lives and we were able to talk a lot about our families and how we grew up and stuff. She listened to me babble on a lot haha I was surprised she didn't fall asleep. 

Elkhorn has a lot of people they are teaching right now and it really is booming! Because of the challenge the whole mission did to pray for a baptism before GenCon they have been able to receive a lot of baptisms. The missionaries here are very obedient and they don't let any time fly by without getting something done. I have a lot to adjust to because Green Bay was pretty slow and struggling a lot...so no more tracting for me! haha the best part...I get to finally live in an apartment :) its one of the best things ever! I love it so far and i sleep great!

Since Wisconsin can be sort of a gloomy state in the winter, we get an hour worth of exercise in the morning now. It started after GenCon so now we will be going out about a half hour later, but that is ok. Also as you can see my pday is a little different now. I probably wont be on every Monday morning at 9:00 (Mountain time) anymore. Most likely it will be later in the day now and some other bad news...I only have an hour and a half for emails now!!! ah i am still panicking because I dont have my usual 3 hours....so we will have to adjust to that...speaking of that...running out of time. gr oh well. i will all see you in about 12 months anyways...so i will just tell you more when i get home haha i am sorry if i am horriblel at answering questions now...the time ticks faster in Elkhorn haha

but oh well. i will get over it. I am doing well here. I hope all is well at home. I love you all and will see you soon! 

Love Sister Emily Sarah Eaton

ps i most likely will get to go to the Chicago temple while i am down here :) if it is an hour or less then we  can go every 6 months!! love you all

Week 25: Transferring Finally!

Hey Family and Friends!

Wow it has been a bit of a crazy week! Lots of anxiety and being nervous! I just can't believe I have already been out almost 6 months and now I am finally getting transferred! 

Here is how transfers all go down here in Wisconsin. So the Saturday before, so this last Saturday, we all get "the text" of who all is going to be transferred in our zone. President sends it to the APs who send it to the zone leaders who send it to the District leaders then to us. If your name it on there you are going! Then Monday (Today) they send out a picture of the transfer board with all the missionaries in the mission and the yellow highlighted ones will be the ones who moved and are new. That is when you find out where you will be going and who your new comp will be. Then you scramble for the rest of the weekend to pack and make sure you get everything. Then Wednesday you drive to the transfer point you are assigned to go to. Green Bay Stake center is a transfer point so we just drive 5 minutes to the church. I will go on another bus with all the other missionaries and probably go to the next transfer point and so on until i get to the city and i am supposed to go to. So that is a little bit of how it all goes down. I dont exactly know how riding down to everywhere else will go because i havent gotten that far, but i will let you all know how it goes. I am so nervous but everyone gets through it right? i am just excited to see a different part of the mission. i have been in Green Bay long enough and I need to see how missionary work is in a new area. sometimes areas just get into a rut and it is time to move and change things up. so that is good i guess. i just hope my comp is nice and all. soo now that i have made you all wait long enough i will tell you all where i am going! My new comp will be Sister Smith...dont know anything about her except that she is a red head...ha thats it. And i will be serving in Milwuakee South zone in Elkhorn. I believe it is outside of Milwuakee. Well wish me luck..bet yet pray for me. I am so grateful that i am going south for the winter haha Make sure to send letters, packages, ect to the mission office.

General Conference was pretty awesome as a missionary! It really made me miss home and some people thought i was weird when i was glued to the screen when they would show Salt Lake. I really miss that place. ha but everything was good and i really wish i took advantage of the peace and quiet at home when we would watch it. We went to the church and watched it all there but it just wasnt the same without my family. We did have an investigator (Amanda) come to the first session on Saturday and Sunday. She kept talking to me and asking me questions...i thought about how i would do this to my mom when i was little...it got kind of annoying...sorry mom. We told her she could take notes and that we could talk about what she wrote down after. she liked that idea so we gave her a piece of paper. Amanda is kind of a sketchy person though. We have a lot to find out about her because sister Olsen and i have had a weird feeling about her. hopefully things will get better though after i leave. 

So here i go. moving on to the next part of my mission. I have so many mixed emotions lol we will see how it all goes. 

Tonight we are going to have REAL burgers for sister olsens birthday at a members house! yum! it will have cheese and bacon in the middle! 

I love you all and hope you have a good week! 

Love Sister Emily Sarah Eaton

Pictures

Mine and Ellen's last volleyball

A member in the 2nd ward, Angie, and I before I left