Week 23: Why do people live here?

Hey Family and Friends!

This week was pretty much awesome! Sister Olsen and I were able to tract in the rain! yay! We decided that we just needed to get it done this week even though we have been dreading it for a long time. Here in Wisconsin it is starting to get cold and we are so not ready for it! I put my tights on again and they aren't coming off! Probably until next May! I don't mind tights though because they are just another fashion accessory haha. But the cold can stay in Canada :/ People here are telling us all that this winter will be worse than last year and I really don't want to hear it! That makes me more frustrated, but I am so grateful I only am here for one winter! Sister Olsen and I ask the same question everyday..."Why do people live here!?" I don't think we will ever find the answer to that one. 

But overall I am doing pretty good. Sister Olsen's family sent me a package on Saturday and I was so surprised! Her mom is too sweet and she just likes to spoil us. 

It is now football season and the Packer fans are pretty much crazy. We have been asked not to go tracting when the games are going on because people get really mad if you interrupt their game. Especially here in Green Bay. 

I am so proud of myself as I have reached the end of Alma in the Book of Mormon! I am still loving it and I look forward to read it and know what will happen next everyday! There are a lot of things I didn't catch the first time I read it for Young Womens...Probably most of the whole book so I am really enjoying it now and usually don't want to put it down. Sister Olsen will catch me reading it when we come home for a bathroom break...heh heh I told her that I don't have my iPod or my phone so what else am I supposed to do? But really I love diving into it all. I started also reading "Jesus the Christ" this week and I cannot put it down! It is seriously like a Harry Potter size book, but I haven't gotten bored yet! I love all the deep doctrine stuff and things that I have over looked so much. 

This morning I got soap in my eye in the shower...that wasn't fun. I was worried I was going to go blind so I took my contacts out right away and have been wearing my glasses ever since. Its weird. 

So I heard the new Costco is ready and open! I am so stoked about that! it will be there when I get home :)

One more story. So when we tracted in the rain the other day we met this lady at her door. We started to tell her about family history and such and then she interrupted me (3rd time that day...I didn't think that was very nice) and was more worried about us being out in the cold. She told us she wasn't interested and that we needed to stay dry. I didn't really have a response for her..I thought to myself.."Well we can't..we are being obedient". That has been our motto ever since. I don't know why people like to interrupt me though...I promise I am giving the Reader's Digest version!  :p

Love you all! Have a good and safe week!

Love Sister Emily Sarah Eaton

Before and After the rain 

Week 22

Dear Family & Friends

Boy, this week was rough, but Sister Olsen and I are going to make this week better! 
We did have an awesome lesson with Jack :) He seems to be accepting everything we taught him about so far. I bore my testimony and it was soo cool! Sister Olsen looked blown away when I did. I was surprised myself! It was like the most amazing testimony ever. If that didn't convince him I don't know what will! Unfortunately, We have to give him to the second ward elders because he lives on their side... :/

We stopped by Debbie's house the other day and tracted around it..kind of peeking to see when she would get home. We needed to set another appointment with her because we totally failed last time at the church. We tracted for about an hour and had not much luck with that. Then we saw Debbie outside and we walked up to her and asked how she was and all that stuff. Then she sighed...I could tell it was coming...She apologized for not calling us back to make another appointment. She told us that she has "too much going on faith wise" and she feels she is comfortable where she is at. My heart literally broke and I just couldn't believe it. She was so golden and all we needed to do is get her husband on board and everything would be just grand. We smiled politely and told her if she ever needed us she could just call us then we walked back to our car. I turned to Sister Olsen and asked her what the heck we were doing wrong?! I was getting so fed up with this whole mission prayer about having a baptism in each area. Everyone was getting one EXCEPT us and it was driving me crazy. We sat in the car in silence. We didn't know what to do next. Tracting just wasn't effective and the appointments we have always get cancelled. We discussed that we know we definitely need to be better at being exactly obedient...ugh ya I am not a perfect missionary :/ and I know I need to do a lot better. Sister Olsen and I have struggled to wake up on time and exercise the full 30 minutes we have. These have always seemed like little things to me at the beginning, but now I am definitely seeing the difference and its pretty big. I feel so awful and I know that the Lord's work isn't something to just be thrown around and to be taken lightly! This is Salvation here and I need to wake up (literally) and realize that! We still have a chance to make the mission goal, but it is going to take a MIRACLE and Sister Olsen and I are going to have to work our butts off! Please pray your hardest for us! We are going to be busy busy busy! I love you all and I hope you have an excellent week!

Love Sister Emily Sarah Eaton

One year down for Elder Taylor! 

Week 21: God knows everything...especially when we will get our iPads...‏

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has gone by way fast and I love it! Everything lately has (for the most part) flown by like crazy and I am still amazed that Cody has been out a year (in 9 days) already! It is so wonderful how much we have both grown and will continue to grow as we keep moving along. I just think it is such a blessing to be going a long side with my best friend. The experience is total awesomeness!

This week, Sister Olsen and I were grateful that none of us got transferred. We know we have way too much work to do in Green Bay and they need us specifically. I was very happy that I stayed because I am not ready to leave..if I could stay here my whole mission that would be great too...but who knows what will happen haha. Usually President Cutler has sisters stay in each area for about 6 months at the most so who knows what will happen next transfer. But I really wouldn't mind having Sister Olsen and I stay too :)

Anyway, we were able to have the opportunity to give a church tour to one of our investigators, Debbie. That was the first time I had given one so we didn't exactly know how it was all going to go. The spirit was really strong there though and she really loved the architecture of the building. My favorite part was showing her the chapel and the baptistery because we didn't have to even talk much. The spirit totally did all the work! We were able to talk about the sacrament with her and how special and sacred it is.  We invited her to church and told her to "come and see". Unfortunately, Debbie didn't show up to church this week, but I know that sometimes things just take time. I am really learning how to be patient with people. I get to thinking that "oh we can just teach this lesson and then this one an then this one...then they can be baptized and it will be easy!" I forget that the whole Mormon religion is a whole different world for them. That some have to change their whole lifestyle for it and it will take time. I need to learn to just slow down and learn to be at the same pace as the investigator. I tend to get frustrated when they don't get things or won't keep their commitments. At times, I won't understand why things are so hard for them to do because I know the blessings that will come from it all. I know that I need to just be more patient and that everything is in God's time. It makes me sad that people would rather not partake of the blessings that our Heavenly Father offers to us, but in time their hearts will be softened. We failed to get a return appointment with Debbie so we will cal her this week. We do get to meet with a family this week (fingers crossed that they won't cancel) and I am excited because Sister Olsen still hasn't met them! They are such a sweet family and they love when we come over. 

This month the missionaries are all excited about the iPads because supposedly for my mission this is the month that the leaders will learn about them and hopefully will be passed out soon after their big meeting. It is supposed to be at the end of the month, but I am still excited. We don't know much information about it though so if any of you in the outside world find out any more news please let me know! haha There are a few missionaries that don't think they will be here until they all go home though so I don't know...I want to be excited, but I don't want to get my hopes up...We will see!

I hope you all have a wonderful week and stay safe please!

I love you and miss you all!

See you soon.

Love, Sister Emily Sarah Eaton

Week 20: Prayer

Hello Family and Friends!

I hope everyone is doing well! This week Sis Olsen and I worked so hard to have 2 baptismal dates, but the two investigators we asked unfortunately declined for now. We are praying more than ever now to make this possible as we only have about a month until October General Conference and our mission has a goal to have at least 1 baptism in each area before General Conference. We do believe it is possible though and we are very excited!

I hope Le'a has a wonderful birthday this week! I sent her a card with my love in it :)

Sister Olsen and I had an interesting experience last night and it really strengthen my testimony even more about prayer. We needed to get more lessons for the week because we had made a goal and hadn't met it yet. We decided to go tract a street we both have been thinking about for a long time. Sister Olsen offered the prayer before we got out of the car. Then we got out and knocked on the first door. It turned out to be a group home and they couldn't accept anything from us so we went onto the next house. This one was a group home as well! We were so confused and Sister Olsen said, "Ok if this whole street are group homes I am going to be mad". I didn't think all of them were...I figured one was a girls group home and the other was a boys group home and it ended up turning out that way. At the boys group home we were able to talk to a guy that worked there. He said he had a copy of the Book of Mormon at home and he thought it had good teachings in it, but he wasn't able to accept anything from us so I figured we were done there...but then he asked us if we had anything to give to him. I was really confused with what was going one, but luckily Sister Olsen isn't as blonde as me so she handled it all. She ended up giving him a card with Jesus on it and our number on the back. She told him that he could contact us if he had any questions. He thanked us and shut the door. I didn't really think much of that visit because usually people don't contact us from being given a card, they usually just throw it away later. We continued tracting the rest of the street and didn't find any other promising people...luckily they all didn't make us waste our time by opening and shutting the door haha. We drove home and started making dinner. 10 minutes later our phone buzzed and it was a number we didn't recognize. It was a text about wanting to know more about our church. They wouldn't say who they were though so we didn't want to make plans to meet with them yet. This person simply asked things about the Word of Wisdom first so we answered them to the best we could over text. We were excited but scared at the same time...we kept asking who they were but they would never respond so eventually we stopped asking that and answered their questions. We couldn't believe it, but this was how Heavenly Father was answering our prayers. This person seemed genuinely interested so we made plans to meet up and teach them at the church with a member..for safely reasons of course. They did end up telling us who they were and that we me them at the group home...well took ya long enough! It was so cool though because he had a lot of questions so we are excited to help him and hopefully help him progress as well. We hope it all goes well Tuesday evening when we meet with Jack.

This morning was a hard one. Things with Sis Bartell (the member we live with) have gone down hill again and I am really struggling with it all. Last night she just kept being negative about how Jack was interested in the church. She kept telling us that he isn't going to care about the church and he is just playing a trick on us. Her comments about it all were just bringing me down while Sis Olsen and I were trying to be happy and excited about it all. This morning was sort of tense and we just felt like we were in her way again. We will continue to be Christlike the best we can though. I want to do what Heavenly Father wants me to, but if his answer is to move into an apartment I am all for that.

I hope you all are doing well. I miss all of you very much and this past week I went through all my letters I have gotten so far for my whole mission and I must say that those are so much comfort to me. I really appreciate all the letters I have gotten. thank you! I love you all!

Love Sister Emily Sarah Eaton

Week 19: I love The Book of Mormon!

Hey Family & Friends

This week was really awesome! On Wednesday we had the privilege to go to Mission Tour in Neenah, Wisconsin. Elder James B. Martino was there to speak to us and give us a new perspective of missionary work and working with the members. I was so proud of myself because I took a lot of good notes and I got such an amazing spiritual uplift. Elder Martino is so awesome and really just said what we all needed to hear. He was blunt, but in a loving way. He taught about how we really need to get members and less actives involved and how that will ultimately strengthen the ward all together. It was such a good meeting and I wish all of you could have been there! He really got into the Book of Mormon and talked about Alma and Amulek and "entering the city another way". I loved this because I was exactly there in my Book of Mormon reading and I really am understanding the Book of Mormon so well! I love reading it everyday. My testimony for it has really strengthened on my mission and it is just so awesome! I don't think I have ever been so excited about a book before...Well maybe the Hunger Games...but other than that...haha the Book of Mormon is so awesome and I encourage each of you to read it! Mission Tour was a wonderful blessing and I can't wait for next year to see what will be taught then.

Last night we had a wonderful lesson with one of our investigators, Ellen. She had us over for dinner and we had a lot of good talks. She doesn't seem quite ready yet to dive into the baptismal font, but I definitely know she will be able to come to know the gospel is true very soon. We taught her the Plan of Salvation and I really felt the spirit in the lesson. She had just finished writing a book about her parents during WWII and it was just so perfect because we were able to comfort her and let her know she will be able to see her parents again someday. Her friend's daughter just passed away in a car accident last Friday and so she has been grieving about that as well. Sharing the Plan of Happiness was such a blessing for her and all of us. While we were talking about the Spirit World, my cousin, Blake, popped into my head...it wasn't just a small thought that "oh ya he is there too", but it was more of like "YOU NEED TO SHARE THIS BECAUSE HE IS HERE WITH YOU!". The Holy Ghost was definitely there and I know Blake as well as my Grandpa & Grandma Eaton and Grandpa Strebel were all there too. I told Ellen that Blake had passed away in a car accident at a very young age as well. I told her that I knew with all my heart that Blake is in the Spirit World on a mission teaching people about the gospel just like me. I know that that is his mission. Someone in the Spirit World needed specifically him to teach them. It was such a cool experience and I love that the veil is thin between earth life and the spirit world. I have such a testimony of the Plan of Happiness! I love teaching it and sharing with people that they can be with their family for eternity! Why would someone say no to that?! I love this gospel and I know it is so true! I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week! Work with the missionaries as much as you can ok! Miracles will happen and you and I will be blessed tremendously! :)

Love Sister Emily Sarah Eaton

Week:18 Smoothies and Sneezes

Hey Family and Friends!

Today I am sneezing like crazy and I blame the flowers someone gave us after church. Leaving them in our room for one night just made my nose a hurricane and I think the librarians are about ready to kick me out of the library haha.

Anyway, I would like you all to know that on Thursday I ate Avocado and Kale! A member in our ward, Sister Robertson, invited us to come over for smoothies in the morning and to meet her daughters friend that needs to be taught the discussions. We went over and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. She threw in carrots, avocado, kale, strawberries, bananas, chia seeds, and orange juice into the blender. She poured it in a cup and gave me a straw. "Enjoy!" she says. haha ok so it wasn't that bad..but I did take my time to drink it down. We were able to get a new investigator, but she will be leaving for school soon so we need to teach her before she leaves! aw the pressure! It was also my 4 months out on my mission and I just cant believe I am already at 4 months! I still feel like I am crawling most days, but it is still crazy! Our mission goal to have a baptism in each area before October General Conference is doing many amazing things! We are seeing many miracles and I am so excited to be able to get a baptism in my first area soon! We plan on setting up baptismal dates for at least 2 of our investigators this week and they already seem ready! It is an amazing experience to have and I am so excited to be here for it all. Missionary work is such an amazing thing and I hope as you all work with the missionaries in your ward you can see that and will want to be apart of it. It is so cool to see someone completely change, but for the better! My most favorite quote that has always kept me going since I was 16 is by Elder Holland. Ok I am sorry to cut this email short. I can't stop sneezing and it is just really annoying so I must go take care of that. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week! Please always keep the missionaries in your prayers!

Love Sister Emily Sarah Eaton

Pirate Ships at the Bay

11 Months down for Elder Taylor

4 months down for Sister Eaton

Week 17: We have family in Wisconsin!

Hey Family and Friends

So I am very disappointed in my family of their lack on mail...just had to get that out.

Anyway how has everyone's week been? This week for me has been awesome, but slow at times. We were able to play tennis more and I am loving it so much! We did exchanges this week with the sister training leaders. I like exchanges a lot better now that one of the sisters got transfered. Now it is Sister Brandley and Sister Harris. They are both so fun and sweet! I went with Sister Brandley to her area which is just on the other side of the Fox River in Green Bay. We had a lot of fun and I did so well at teaching. We met with one of their investigators and talked her through baptism because she had her baptism on Saturday! That was so exciting to experience another baptism! I can't wait until it is one of mine :) President Cutler started this thing on July 1st that every time we prayed we needed to pray sincerely that every area would get a baptism in the mission before October General Conference. We have all definitely seen miracles happen since then and it is truly amazing. I really do believe that  us Green Bay 1st ward Sisters will get a baptism for October! We have had a few promising investigators and we are so excited. Although we have no set dates for anyone right now I know we will get those this week :) 

On Friday we were invited to a ritirement party. Sister Bartell's (the memeber we live with) brother was annoucing what he was going to do after he retired and he wanted us missionaries there because he thought it would be a great opportunity for us to meet and talk to people about the church. Him and his wife will be serving a mission and a lot of his co workers aren't members. He was introducing his co workers and he said someone with the last name of "Strebel"! I perked up and looked over to where he was pointing, but it was already too late. I thought that was so cool. After he was done talking, Sis Oslen and I went over to the table he pointed at and asked who had the last name of "Strebel". One guy raised his hand and we started talking. I had told him about how my mom's maiden name is Strebel and that it was surprising to me to hear it since it wasn't so common. He said his name was Dan Strebel (He spelled it the same way too). I asked him who is parents and grandparents were and he said his mom's name was Rita Strebel and his Grandpa was Theodore Strebel. I didn't hear wjhat he said for his dad or grandma haha but it was so cool to find this out! He asked if I had family here because a lot of the Strebels settled in the Bay settlement. I told him I didn't know and all I did know was that my grandpa raised him family mostly in Salt Lake. He said he didn't know of any family from Utah. We chatted a little longer, but then he started to back off and told us goodbye...I think he realized we were missionaries haha but that is ok. We totally talked about family history with him and I told him I would look at my family history onfamilysearch.org and see if we were related. He was super nice and it was fun to talk to him.

I hope you all have a wondeful week! I am excited for more miracles to happen in Green Bay :) Love you all!

Love Sister Emily Sarah Eaton