a very good week

A few excerpts from Sadie's email today.  AND....Her first opportunity to be involved in a baptism:)

Ok I LOVE the hot chocolate bar idea! What a fun thing to do. I would definitely be jumping on that wagon. Is it weird that we're all not together? It feels kind of weird to me but I have to say that the feeling of complete homesickness is going away, not that I don't miss you because you know I do! But I'm just really starting to catch the vision of why I'm here and what we need to do. 

As you can see in the picture, VERONICA did it! She is officially a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We held her baptism last Saturday at 3, we were so nervous because people were late and the font wasn't filled all the way (Can you talk about STRESS) but we started a little late and Veronica looked so beautiful. Her sister came and Rick and Ricky (Husband and son) and the program went pretty smoothly. Sister Tau, Tofa, and I sang a mix of songs I Know My Redeemer Lives and I Feel My Savior's Love. We sang a cappella  and in three part harmony and it was only by divine assistance that we were able to do it haha. We only had one time to practice altogether but it turned out really nicely. I'll sing it for you on Christmas maybe :) Veronica was absolutely glowing.  WE are looking forward to Rick getting baptized soon (hopefully in the next two weeks?) BUT YES I AM SO EXCITED FOR HER! And let me tell ya, it is stressful to organize a baptism! But it happened, it really happened :) I think it hit me at some point when we were up singing, I looked at Veronica and her family and thought "She's one step closer to returning home."

We fasted twice this week to find new people to teach (Holy Moly I thought I was going to pass out) but when we are humble and do all we can, the Lord provides for us! At the end of the day we fasted, we went to go see a fam that had come to our Christmas party. Very cute little fam, 3 kids and a mom and dad , Alexis and Steven. They are looking for something  and after we taught them the Restoration, they said they wanted to come to church!  Yesterday we went and sang at a memory care home, with the Bishop's fam, the Elders, and a couple other families. I played the piano and so I was able to watch all of them lined up singing. I smiled and thought to myself, this is what Christmas is all about! This is the vision that I wish everyone could see! These people have truly become my second family and are really taking care of us. I'm so grateful that the Lord has placed them in my life, they make me want to become a better person every day. 

We have our Christmas Zone meeting coming up, I'm really excited because I'm accompanying Sister Pedersen, she plays the cello and guess what, she's a music major in music therapy at ASU! Who knew! She plays beautifully and we are playing "O Come O Come Emmanuel" by the Piano Guys. http://www.mormonchannel.org/christmas-videos?v=2008190983001

This the link to it. Seriously I cannot explain how much the Lord has blessed me to magnify my talent while I've been here. This song, which usually would take me a little bit longer to learn, has been learned within 3 practices. SO COOL. I might have someone record it.... But yes I'm really excited. Hermana Pedersen can also play my favorite cello suite by Bach. I might want to learn how to play it when I get home, it really is just so pretty. 

We have transfers the day after New Years.  I love this work so much and nothing brings me greater joy than helping others and not letting them give up on themselves. We are all beggars, we all need help and Christ would take the time to make sure nobody was left behind, so I will do the same. I love this place more and more everyday, I'm starting to see the beauty that I've maybe missed before. I can't wait to keep on keeping and go into the new year with better goals and a fresh view on how to work. Work work work, there's nothing else we can do :) 

 I LOVED the THE PACKAGE FROM THE WARD! OH my goodness that had 48 letters in it!! Merry Christmas to me!! Do you know who sent it so I could send a giant thank you to them? I was blown away!! I loved Sierra's letter in it the most. Tell her how much I love her and love to hear from her, it means so much to me. I love the family pic, I have to say though, our family looks very small when I'm not there haha, but I keep in my room on my picture wall and I smile and kiss it daily! 

LOVE YOU SO MUCH! Feliz Navidad, Feliz Navidad, Feliz Navidad, Prospero Ano y Feliz Navidad! 

Sister Sadie Maughan

Thanksgiving 2013

Sadie's latest letter and some pics from the past month!

Mia familia, I send my love to all of y'all! 

No I did not visit the Alamo this week, but I would have liked to :) I hope everyone had a glorious week full of stuffing and playing football and being thankful! We have so much to be thankful for! Our Thanksgiving day started at 1:00 in the afternoon, we went to a less actives house, and we thought we were just having snacks but we ate at 2! Sister Salazar served our plates too, so we had to eat everything off of it. Then we went with the Elders to the Lewis' house, we got there around 4 and the sink had just given out, it was draining so the Elders bailed water out, we all helped :) We didn't have a football, so we played catch with a tennis ball. I was having trouble running in my skirt though, the Elders made fun of me because I could only run so far without having to make an extra effort to get there. Oh well :) We are going to show them up in Basketball and Volleyball in a second though! So we ate there, and then we went to Patricia's house, and helped decorate the Christmas tree, and ate some more. I made the fatal mistake of standing on her scale, of course I gained 3 pounds that day alone haha nuts!! (It's a good thing we have a gym in our apartment complex).

So this week has been pretty rough contacting wise, we really haven't found anyone new to teach so keep praying those tens of thousands will open their doors to us! On Saturday, we decided to call it Super Saturday, because we were going to tract and contact referrals and not come back until everyone of them was done. We set out looking for all these people. We tried EVERY house we could, talked to every person we could. Some said we could come back. But no one ever let us it. By the end of the day, we contacted about 20 houses. Phew! We went hope disappointed, but our spirits were not burnt out. We thought we lost our phone when we got home, so we went to check the car for it. A nice old grandpa saw us and talked to us and invited us in to his apartment (Richard and Mary). He introduced us to his wife and we all talked for a bit. Super friendly couple, they aren't members, and they invited us over for dinner! It was such a tender mercy from the Lord.

Missions are hard but missionaries are tough! We never give up, even after a week full of hardships. I love to read in Alma when all the wars were going on, the Lamanites were constantly attacking the Nephites, but the Nephites never gave up! Especially Captain Moroni, he always rallied his troops and gave it his all, and if he came out triumphant, so can we. I know we can work miracles with the Lord and I know that this too shall pass! 

Thank you for continuted love and support, I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for y'alls example. Elder Anderson is doing swell, tearing it up in Brenham, we get to see each other this week for temple day!! Woot woot! His day is Tuesday and mine is Wednesday, but since we are one the way to the temple, he will stop by. 

Love and miss y'all with all my heart, keep up the good work and keep being amazing!

Love,

Sister Maughan 

The tallest member of Sadie's ward (by a long shot!)

One of the families Sadie is teaching.  Veronica is getting baptized this month.

Sadie's new apartment (that she was absolutely thrilled about).

 Local wildlife that got stuck in their car.

A couple of Sadie's favorite Elders. One of them was finishing his mission this month (lucky family that will have him home for Christmas!)

Helping decorate a ward member's tree.

 Another family member Sadie and her companions are teaching.

 Sadie's "Charlie Brown" christmas tree that she was SO excited about.  I love missions!

Catching Up

Hi Friends and Family....Sadie's mom here... REALLY behind on keeping up her blog. But, I promise to be better!  I just wanted to update her address on the side bar.  The Jester Blvd. will be her address at least through December.  Feel free to drop her a note.....She LOVES getting mail:) Tomorrow I will update letters and pictures!

Week #2

Hi Everyone,
      Sorry this post is a little delayed.  I've updated Sadie's address (on the left) and I will keep it current (in case you'd like to drop her a line!).  Here's a little excerpt from last Monday's email and few pictures.  The best part was that Sadie got to see her cousin (Elder Anderson).

Hello my beautiful family!! Thank you for all of the wonderful emails and stories from this week. Makes me miss home but I know you are all safe and watched over! Ok I'll be straight up honest, this week was extremely hard. I guess I really didn't explain in my last letter, but the area I'm in is really hard to find investigators. We can tract a whole 2 streets and no one will let us even talk to them. Do you know what though? That's ok! Last night my comps and I were talking about how the Lord measures success, and we know he measures it by our obedience, our dedication, and how often we feel the Spirit. It's ok that it's hard! Honestly! I think my expectations were that when I got out here we would be teaching everyday an baptising every month. But that's not the Lord's plan! I think this mission has only had a total of 3 baptisms so far, and I can't remember if I told you but there are 600 people in our ward, only half are active. 600 members, 6 missionaries total! It's a lot of work but we can do it with the Lord's hand. We are working really hard to get the members active with working with us, I really just want them all to help us out more often but they really don't want to half of the time haha. 

Ok end rant now on to the happy things! I try to look for the good things only in our days now, if we focus on the bad we get really sad! And sometimes you just have to cry and let the Lord comfort you. I am learning so much about the Atonement, and how much we need to use it's enabling power in our lives! Also mom and dad, I just want to apologize when I have been such a brat sometimes, I've realized how much you mean to me and how much you've done for me my whole life. There are kids out here who have NOTHING. And on top of that, their parents care little or not at all. I'm so grateful that I was raised in a home where I can feel safe and know that I can always count on you. I hope you can forgive me for being so selfish sometimes! I am really working on turning out when I feel like turning in, because I know this is not my mission, it's the Lords! (Moses 1:39) 

Ok for crazy stories, we almost got in a really bad car accident a couple days ago! It was pouring rain, and we were going down the street (kinda fast) and a car was about to turn left in front of us. Suddenly, like 60 feet before we passed them, they pulled out in the middle of the road, so the car in the other lane stopped, so we were heading full force towards this car in the middle of the road! Sister Tofa slammed on the brakes and, I kid you not, we skidded to a stop, with only 2 inches between us and the other car. BLESSINGS! (We say that all the time) We pulled over and thanked Heavenly Father for protecting us. I know he watches over us all the time. He is so good to us!

I'm so sad that Diana is home, but I know that she is going home for a reason! I prayed the other night about her and just felt so sad, but I got a confirming feeling that there is a reason she is going home. Please let her know how much I love her and I know that the Lord will bless her for her diligence in serving him. 

Trials make us stronger! If we never went through the bad we would never understand the good. Just because this week wasn't good doesn't mean the next one will be too. I trust in the Lord with all my heart and I know that he understands so much more than I do, I know he will always help us if we listen to him. '

hello houston

Sadie arrived safely in Houston last Wednesday. Her first location is in an area very close to the Houston airport. Below are a few excerpts (if it seems a little disjointed) from her letter.

"Dearest sweet family of mine,

I'm here I'm here! Holy moly I have so much to tell you so please excuse my fast typing and mistakes. Ok so I LOVE IT HERE! So I am the minority here... I'm like a real gangsta now. (haha Sierra, from your letter) Everyone calls me baby or hun or whatever, I'm like YO MY NAME IS SISTA! Haha anyways but Dad you are correct, mis companeras are from TONGA and SAMOA!!! Sister Tau is from Tonga and SIster Tofa is from Samoa. So cool right??? They have accepted me as their cuz, and they say I'm not a polangi, which means white girl. They say I'm a poly :) Tell Bumpa they are teaching me a dance and we are going to video it and send it home! KUTAAA! Ok so this week we have already seen so many miracles and crazy things. Don't worry mom I'm not afraid because angels are always protecting us, when we walk, there are only 3 of us, but I can feel a whole bunch of angels behind us. Ok so let's see... Let me talk about Saturday. While tracting on Friday, we had a feeling to go to a certain street. The first door we knocked on was a Muslim woman, and she said the missionaries 5 years ago came and gave her a Book of Mormon in Arabic. CRAZY right?? So we went back to their house Saturday. The son, 25 years, has been to the Mormon church and felt the Spirit....."

"Then that night, we met a Church of Christ huge man that was like "If it isn't in the Bible, it isn't true!" After he found out we weren't there to convince him, he let us in and we bore testimony of Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith, and the Spirit was so strong!! He didn't accept our message but he was very thankful for us coming to talk to him..."

"Also Dad, you would be so proud, a lot of people are Hispanic too and speak only Spanish, so I'm learning to speak it and it's AWESOME! Somos misioneras para la Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias, Tenemos un mesaje para tu familia! Haha it's getting better. I prayed out loud in Spanish for our companionship prayer, and it was good! It's amazing how the Spirit can be felt in any language...."

" We rely on the Spirit to fill our mouths and if we do, the Spirit can testify to their hearts that it is true. I also want to let you know that remember how my setting apart blessing says I will teach those of the lost tribes of Israel? It's so true already, there is so much diversity here it's almost like being in a foreign country. We are teaching a lady names Christina from Liberia, Africia, and she even speaks her own dialect! She has a baptism date, and we hope she will continue to develop along the road to Christ." 

"Ok I love my companions because they are letting me to keep using the computer, because they're are only two and they let me have it a little longer! They are seriously the greatest! They both have a New Zealand accent, because they've lived there too, so don't be surprised when I call at Christmas and sound like them! Haha seriously I'm already picking up on their accent and I sound Hispanic sometimes when we all speak in Spanish. Fabulosa!! "

Alright well I've got to go but I love you all! 

Oute alofa iate oe!!! (Means I love you in Samoan)

MAUGHANS CAN DO HARD THINGS! 

XOXOXO,

SISTER MAUGHAN or SISTER MONGA (my Samoan name) 

And a few pics I pulled from the Houston Texas Blog.

  Sorry.... not great quality since I pulled them from another blog.  Hopefully Sadie will be sending her own soon!!!

The MTC

Hi family and friends!  Sorry it's taken me so long to update Sadie's blog. Here's our first letter and a few pics. We got to talk to her yesterday before she flew to Houston.  She is LOVING IT!!!

On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 11:47 AM, Sadie Maughan <sadie.maughan@myldsmail.net> wrote:

Family and friends! Oh my goodness I made it to the MTC!! It's already been a week, can you believe it? I'm like whoaa I just got here didn't I? The MTC is so amazing and there is so much to learn and take in and it's really amazing. So I'll try to walk you through the week as best as I can remember, (don't worry mom I wrote in all down in my journal so I remember). OK so my companion's name is Sister Andreason, she is from Ohio and she is very knowledgable about the gospel! Haha... and she's pretty spunky like me so we get along well in that sense. So when I got to the MTC, my host was so sweet and walked me through everything, (and I got my name tag!!) and I got on a bus to ride down to MTC West. (Raintree are our classrooms, what room were you in again mom and dad?) So we live at Wyview and have to trek across in the morning to our classes, but it's ok because I'm getting used to the cold now. Plus us Houston sisters keep saying we better enjoy it since it will never be cold like that in Houston. Elder Anderson I'm coming to see you soon!! Get ready! So I absolutely love my district, they are amazing and have become my second family. All the sisters are going to Houston Texas and the Elders are going to Farmington, New Mexico. We get taught in a tiny make-shift classroom, but it's ok because I love my teachers to and the Spirit we feel whiole they teach us. 

Ok so back to the schedule on Wednesday I dropped my stuff off and came back to Raintree, met my companion and went back to the other rooms in Raintree. I don't remember a whole lot about Wednesday but I do remember we had an orientation (I saw Elder Malais a couple times!) and for our song we sang "We'll Bring the World His Truth" and we changed the words at the end to "and we are now the Lord's missionaries" and I just felt so incredibly happy! I went to bed feeling super tired but I slept like a rock. Getting up hasn't really been too hard, but that alarm clock sure does start to get on your nerves! I just do what you told me Dad, I sit up and I smile, and I roll down on my knees and thank Heavenly Father for this great opportunity I had. I don't remember the chronological order of the next events but just some more stories I want to share with you! 

Ok so remember how Sister Kimzey was not able to come into the MTC with me? Well let me tell you how much the Lord loves us. We went up to a Devo on the Main MTC campus on Saturday I think, and when we got in we got to sit towards the front of the room. A host came up and said Sisters would you like to sit front row? We we're like heck ya! So we went and sat right in front of the speaker. So cool! It was President Daines of the Provo Temple, and he was an amazing speaker. But as I sat down out of the corner of my eye guess who I saw... that's right, SIster Kimzey, who sat on the end row of me. I was soooo happy to see her, and when the Devo ended, we ran up and hugged each other so tight, it was pretty emotional because I thought I wouldn't see her until after our missions. Then guess what! FOUR other missionaries from my BYU ward came up and talked to us because they saw us!! Such a blessing to reunite with them, I had to leave pretty quick because my companion wanted to go, but it was such a tender mercy to see them (Mom ask for pics from Madisen's mom, Madisen took pics of us!)

I've learned incredible patience in the last 5 days, I have never been so humbled in my entire life. We have what's called a progressive investigator, which means our teacher basically is our investigator and we teach him. As we prepared to teach the third lesson, I felt that what we had already prepared was not what we were supposed to teach. Finally I felt so sick about it, I turned to her and just said straight up, "Sister, this isn't what we need to be teaching. We need to teach him about families." She was like what? We only have a couple min left to prepare, but ok. So instead of scrambling to prepare again, I said that we should say a prayer and ask for the Spirit to be with us. As we finished the prayer, I felt very calm and I knew that however the lesson went, it was because the Lord wanted it to go that way. Basically as we went through the lesson, our investigator told us that his mom had passed away a year ago and that he had never know his dad, and that he believed in the Plan of Salvation. My companion couldn't stop crying and I couldn't stop thanking the Lord for such a unique teaching opportunity for both my companion and the investigator. I then asked him, (Justin), what about your future family? Do you ever think about them? To which he replied: "You know, I guess I really never have before. Until now." It was the most amazing experience I have ever had. I mean, this was just our teacher too, imagine what how the Spirit could touch the lives of those who really need this Gospel in their lives! I can already feel the presence of those ready to be taught in Houston. I know that if I am exactly obedient and follow the Spirit, he will guide me.

 BTW, please watch "Character of Christ" by David A. Bednar. Most amazing talk I have ever watched. I just want to let everyone know that even though I know this mission will be hard, there is nothing I would rather be doing than helping others come unto Christ. He is REAL. And his love and Atonement can heal anyone, if they let it work in their lives. I thank him daily for his mercy and for teaching me through these amazing experiences.

NEW MISSIONARIES COME IN TODAY! And guess who gets to welcome them... my companion and I :) We got called to be Sister Training Zone Leaders. which is such a humbling call, I LOVE helping all the sisters and making sure they feel God's love for them. Don't worry mom I will take care of the new missionaries coming in, just like that host took care of me! 

Ok I'm almost out of time but I love you all and here are some pics!!! Heavenly Father loves you all so much too and don't forget to watch GC this week! (Sadly I will not be singing this week, still amazing to watch it in the MTC) 

P.S. THANK YOU FOR THE LETTERS AND PACKAGES! (Yes I got your package mom!!) :) :) Missionaries love mail. And I love you all. Keep on smiling. 

GIVE EM HEAVEN!

"Oh Crap, She's Leaving!"

This will be the first and last post by yours truly, Sister Maughan! (well, almost) All my emails and photos and videos will be posted on this blog by my mother dearest, she will also update addresses and answer any questions you have.

There's a quote that I really like that says "Be the kind of woman that when you wake up in the morning, Satan says "Oh crap, she's awake!!" Changing that phrase a bit, Satan knows I'm leaving and I hope to be the woman that makes him say "Oh crap, she's leaving!!" It's been a long and tough road but I've made it. I know this next year and a half will be the best of times, and the worst of times, but it will be the greatest decision I have ever made. Nothing brings me greater joy than to see people happy, and I hope to tell anyone and everyone I can how much the Gospel can bring joy into your life, and can help you become who Christ wants you to be. You are worth it, you are so worth it, and everyone on this planet needs to know that!

I know that my Redeemer lives. I know this Gospel is true. I'm so grateful for the love and support I've received, I know that I have been blessed beyond my capacity to hold.

God be with you 'til we meet again!