Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year! Wow. I can't believe 2013 is almost over. It went by so fast. I can't believe all that has happened this year. It has been a crazy year.
Well. This week was a nice week. It was so great getting to talk to you guys. I am so grateful for the time that I got spend. It was perfect for me. I am sure that you guys would have loved to talk longer but I think I would have gotten trunky. It is a good thing that I am not.
Well. it was a bit of a slow week but it was still good. We didn't find any new investigators and the one investigator we got to church dropped us. But I know we are going to have a lot of miracles to come.
I am sorry this is so short. Nothing is really going on. Bryce is now going to the YSA branch and he loves it. He might even go to the temple on Friday. I really hope so. That would be so awesome. We are working with other less active families to try and get them to make a new years resolution to come to church at least once a month. That is a start haha.
Well. I hope you all have a great week. I love you! I didn't have a white Christmas but it starting to snow this morning :( The snow and I are still not friends.
Have a great week. I love you
Sister Shaw

Miracles happen.....1st Baptism! !!

Wow. This has been a CRAZY week! I can't believe how fast it went by. Thank you mom and Abby for all the updates. I was very surprised! But about Christmas. I got your packages and I am so excited. I am just assuming I open them on Christmas and none on Christmas eve haha. I am glad Michael is home. I miss him so much. I am expecting a printed picture of all you guys in your Christmas pjs. And time to tell you about the phone call! Yes. it is just a phone call and it will be for a max of 35 minutes. I know. short. But that is what President Porter said and I love you but I am going to be exactly obedient so I can have miracles happen in the field. Sorry. but I will be calling you at about 730-8. Closer to 8 my time. So about 5 your time. I can't wait to talk with you. I love you all.
I have to tell you about this week though!
So. This has been a miracle week. On Tuesday I got to spend the day with one of my Sister Training Leaders. Her name is Sister Crosby. I love her. She is so sweet and encouraging. I have been struggling with feeling inadequate and feeling like I am a bad trainer but she has been encouraging me and telling me all the awesome things that I have been doing. So I loved Tuesday.
Wednesday was just normal. Trying o talk to people and mostly everyone ignoring us haha. It is funny. :)
Thursday was the best day ever! We had our Christmas Conference in Muncie, Indiana. A 2 hour drive. Sister Smith in the Centerville ward (right below us) drove with Sister Soefle (Her companion and one of the sisters I was in the MTC with) and Sister Hall and I. We had to be ready to go at 6 am. But it was so much fun. We got to have fun with other missionaries, learn what we can do to become better and lastly feel the spirit. The spirit was SO STRONG! It was so incredible. I am so blessed. I was sitting in the chapel and in the middle of this spiritual high I'll call it, I just had the thought that THIS IS TRUE! there is no way anyone can convince me otherwise. No one can make this up. No one can make me feel this way. this is the Holy Ghost. It was super cool. I get more and more converted everyday!
Friday we had 2 miracles. We were in weekly planning first when we got like 4-6 blank texts from a former investigator Zoey. She hadn't talked to missionaries in about year and she kept trying to send us texts. So I decided that I should call her. She asked if we had any activities going on and we told her about our baptism and she said that she would come. then later that day we were trying to contact a referral that the Elders gave us and they weren't home. So we decided to pray to see if we still needed to be the area and decided that we needed to stay. then we decided to go down a side street and knock around. I picked a house and no one answered. Sister Hall picked a house and a high school senior named Mike answered. We talked to him for about 15 minutes and he agreed to meet with us tonight at the church :) He also texted us last night and asked if he could bring a friend. We are so excited.
Saturday BRYCE GOT BATPIZED! It was so amazing. The spirit was so strong. He is so awesome. I am so happy. We helped someone. We changed his life forever. It is pretty cool because during his baptismal interview he told our district leader that Sister Hall and I inspired him and he is thinking about serving a mission in a year. so amazing! Miracles! Well zoey didn't come to the baptism so we called her and invited her to church.
Sunday BRYCE GOT CONFIRMED. it was insane. I thought it was never going to happen. He 5 MINUTES LATE TO SACRAMENT MEETING! I thought I was going to have a heart attack. But he did it. It was so cool. Zoey also came to church and we are meeting with her this week. then, that night, we got a call from a member and told us to go take a Book of Mormon to someone. Her name is Becky. She is so cute. She is in her 40s and she said that she is pretty much ready to convert. She is so golden. It is awesome.
As you can tell. I have had an AMAZING week! I am so lucky. miracles happen everyone! I love you all! Have merry Christmas!
Love,
Sister Shaw

Week 17!

Wow! 10 more days and I get to hear from you guys! that is crazy! :) Things are still going great here. yes I found my charger and Ill be sending lots of pictures this week :) haha. Well. It is still really really cold. everyone is saying that this is a bad winter but Rexburg was worse. It is funny because Sister Hall is from Idaho Falls and she wears more layers than I do and she is more cold. it is probably because she is skinnier than I am. but anyway. I did get the Christmas card. I laughed. It was really cute :)

We haven't gotten to use the nativity cut outs yet but I think we are going to use them on Christmas. Go to the families in the ward and see if they will let us read Luke 2 with them and have the kids play with them. Oh and a request from me... make sure that the missionaries have somewhere to be on Christmas. I really hope we don't have to tract because that would be hard so don't make them. Invite them over for something. They need to have lots of lessons on Christmas because we can only be somewhere for an hour at a time so yeah. Help your missionaries out. And if you see an Elder Guerrero take good care of him. His family is in my ward and they treat me sooooo awesome. They show me so much love and ask me many questions about Carlsbad haha. :)

Ok. Now onto my week:)

This week was AWESOME! hole cow I loved it. We are meeting the ward and making a lot of family mission plans which is awesome but the best part of all was zone conference and stake conference.

So zone conference was on Saturday morning. We went and Elder Perkins from the 70 talked to us and really helped us all figure out what we needed to do to become better missionaries. Holy cow I have ALOT to work on haha. but yeah. I had a really cool experience at zone conference. So Elder Perkins started it off and he said before I get started, I want all of you to write down a question that you want answered here today. So I wrote down how can I become a better trainer to Sister Hall? So he was talking and at the end he was like ok I really feel the need to say something and then he went on and talked about when he was training that he built his companion's faith. That hit me like a ton of bricks. That was my answer. I am with Sister Hall to help her build her faith. He went on to day that that story was for someone (ME!) and then President Porter talked to us right after and before he got started he said that what elder perkins talked about was for someone (ME!) I was trying so hard not to cry! then at the end of the conference, like it wasn't spiritual enough, Sister Perkins took all of the Sister's into the relief society room and had us write a Psalm. Wow. I couldn't believe how spiritual it was. I felt like I got hit by the spiritual train. My psalm is all over everything now. It is my person testimony of Jesus Christ, something that I will always hold dear.

Well to think that Saturday couldn't get any better... it did! :) I shook ELDER D. TODD CHRISTOFFERSON'S HAND! How cool is that?! We went to stake conference and were standing by the door and he walked in the door we happened to be sitting by :) It was so awesome. I didn't want to let go of his hand because the spirit hit me when I shook it. so awesome. I love being here on a mission. I am so blessed.

Well. Bryce's baptism is this weekend so please pray everyone that it will happen. Satan is really working on him but we are getting the YSA branch involved so in other words... he doesn't have a chance. :) But prayers would be nice. I can't believe he is getting baptized already. It is happening so fast! I wish you could all see his transformation over this last week. He is changing so much and it is so cool. I thank God everyday for letting me be apart of it.

Sorry this email is so long. I just had an AMAZING weekend. A weekend that I am never going to forget.

I love you

I hope you have a fantastic week.

I don't miss you!

Love

sister shaw

 Me and my old investigator Sherry in West Chester. :)

 Me and Mckell Belnap. She is so cute. She would come out with us all the time and her dad is in the stake presidency and her brother is on a mission in south America. Love their family!

 Transfers day! Us with our new companions

 This is Sister Hall, me, sister Webb, Sister Yokum, and Sister Floyd. sister Floyd was sister webbs trainer and this is sister webb and I with our trainees :) heritage line :) haha.

me SIster Webb and sister green, my old Sister training leader. :)

 Sister Jacobsen, Sister Soefle, Me, Sister Ollerton, and Sister chapa. MTC buddies. All but sister chapa are in my zone now! :) so happy! I love these sisters

 Elder Smith and I (Old camping buddies)

New Area...New ADDRESS!!!!!

Well. This has been a very interesting week. It has been really hard to get use to not being with Sister Webb. (A lot of crying on Sister Webb and I's part) I am adjusting though. I am in Kettering Ohio. My new address is

8020 valley forge dr #Q

Kettering, oh 45440

My new companion is Sister Hall. She is Idaho Falls. She turned 19 in October and graduated from high school this last year. She is the oldest of 4. 3 younger sisters. She has been adjusting well which is nice. She is a good missionary though. I am so impressed. I don't think I am going to teach her anything. (Other than the rules) she is totally pre-trained. She is pretty quiet so that is different for me because I am use to Sister Webb who talked a lot.

Kettering is an interesting little place. We got doubled in, so we took some Elders place. We are living in their old apartment which is ok. They aren't the cleanest but I was expecting worse. They left us a lot of investigators and we are trying to get a hold of all of them. But it is not easy. We have only met 1 of our 9 investigators and we commited him to be baptized on December 21. Which is soooo awesome! He really wants to do it too. I just don't even know what to do with myself. But other than Bryce we don't really know the rest of our investigators. We are going to try and meet them all this week. Hopefully we can.

But yeah. Transfers were super fun because I got to see everyone from my MTC zone. I was so happy. I miss them all! Two of the sisters in my MTC zone are now in my zone which is super cool :) But yeah. I'll writing letters this week.

Oh! Thanksgiving! Duh! haha. Thanksgiving was good. It was nice because we had a dinner lined up for us already so we just called and asked people if we could come over for an hour and introduced ourselves and stuff. The ward is so nice. Everyone loves us because we are the first set of sister missionaries that they have had for like 15 years. so they are so excited to have us.

Well. That was my week. It was good and things will hopefully improve. I don't miss you at all though. I love you! I hope you are excited for Christmas! I love the Christmas season. Oh in my package for Christmas do you want to add some stamps? :) That would be awesome! :) I am running low on US and Out of the country ones.

I hope you all have a fantastic week! Keep being awesome and moving towards the Lord. He knows what we can do. He will work with what we give him. I can see that even more now, being a trainer. President Porter was saying that being a trainer is the most important calling you can have as a missionary and it means that the Lord trusts. I can definitely see how that is true and I am so blessed to have this opportunity.

Love

Sister Shaw

Week 14......

Well.... it is transfers week and....

I AM GETTING TRANSFERED!!! I got the call this morning that I am getting transfered and that I am also training. So I going to be opening a new area with a new missionary... just in time for the holidays. It was been hard for sister webb and I. We have both been crying. Sister Webb is one of my best friends now. I really really don't want to leave her but the Lord needs me somewhere else. I am soooo nervous. I am actually completely freaking out. I wish I could explain to you how inadequate I feel to be in this position. There are lots of sisters that have been out longer than I have that aren't getting transfered or training. I guess God knows I can handle it.

But anyway. This was a good week again. I went on an exchange to hamilton on wednesday. That was fun. I was in a threesome for the first time. I was with Sister Beeson (She came out with me but she is a visa waiter.) and Sister Origer (She came out the transfer before me). I love them both. Sister Beeson and I decided that we are going on a study of broad together to Europe, fall 2015. So Ill be saving for that when I get home :) That was pretty much the only thing that happened this week. We didn't meet with Sierra or Sherry this week. But we are going to stop by them tonight since I am leaving and I can get some pictures with them and say goodbye. I feel so rushed. I just want to say goodbye to everyone here. I love this ward. I am very said to leave it.

Wish me luck this next week. And write me letters. I didn't get any letters this last week so that made it hard. Ill be sending you my new address tomorrow on my letters this. I love you all and I hope you all have a fantastic week.

Oh and yes I got the warm package. I loved it. The dancing turkey is sooo great. He sits on my study desk. I named him Jerry. I love the head band too. So cute! Perfect timing too! It has been 22 degrees here for like the past 2 days. Not fun. But yeah. Those tights are AWESOME too! I love them! :)

I love you

Week 13!!

Hey hey!

Yes I did receive my boots. I loved them. They are GREAT!!! I wear them everyday. :) They fit!

Yesterday was pretty freaky for me. We had tornado warnings all day and we were at a members home around 6 and the tornado sirens went off so we had to go down to the basement. Nothing happened thank goodness but I was totally freaked out! haha. Oh well. It was cool. I survived my first almost tornado.

This has been a super hard week. Our knees pretty much got taken out by Satan. We basically only have one investigator as of right now because the rest of them won't talk to us. Sierra is off date, Sarah dropped us, Sherry disappeared (Maybe in the hospital), Bekah is still super sick with lupis and has memory loss, and Hillary disappeared also. Our only investigator is Lois Watson right now and she is totally awesome. She is so sweet and she is ready to read the book of mormon on a spiritual level (She has read it before). She also said that she would be baptized if she came to know it was true! Super awesome :) But yeah. It is going to be a week of finding and helping Lois. We aren't leaving our other investigators alone quiet yet. Especially Sierra.

I know Bubba. I didn't know he went on a mission.. He graduated the same year as me but from Great oak. Last I heard about it he was in San Franscico?

Im glad you are excited for thanksgiving. Transfers are the tuesday before thanksgiving so I don't even know if I will be here. I could be somewhere else. That'll be interesting. For christmas all I really want are garments. Ill send you my size in my letter :) haha.

Sorry this is so short. I have pictures this week though :) Hopefully Ill have time to send them!

I love you!

SIster Shaw

First snow of the year!!

McDonalds for LUNCH!!!

Deer in the middle of someone's yard while tracting.....

Getting ready for winter...NEW boots!!

They FIT!! Thank goodness for online shopping and a sister with the same size foot!!

 The Sister Webb cat....it only had three legs!

Week 12

Thank you so much for sending me boots! These boots are almost done for. haha. I have two HUGE holes in them! Yes I got my CDs today! You didn't put an apartment number on them so I didn't get them until I went to the office today to forward letters to people who don't live in our apartment anymore. Thanks for all the notes and stuff. I loved them! :) That's too bad the Elder Esplain has a shy companion. Transfers are in two weeks and I am really afraid that I am going to get transferred. We have almost the entire ward praying that we won't get transferred haha. They love us! which is totally awesome because we got like 3 referrals last week. But two of them were not interested at all! and we haven't talked to the other one yet. Hopefully he will be interested.

I did hear about the typhoon. That is so crazy! Theres a family from our ward or the ward next to us that are mission presidents there and they said that the missionaries are going to be doing a lot of service. haha. Its good that hey have a sense of humor about something scary like that. People keep telling me that these next couple of months are going to be the worst of my life because I am going to be so cold. I pretty much wear my snow coat everywhere already and its not even that cold yet... haha. Im so scared!

My investigators are great though. Atsushi unfortunately dropped us on Friday. He wasn't ready to take it all in yet but I have no doubt that in the future he will be baptized. :) Sierra is now on date for December 21! I am so excited. She came to church yesterday and I think she liked it. Her mom loved it. But yeah. At church yesterday President Porter just happened to show up to our ward along with like 6 stake presidents, and an area authority. After sacrament was over President Porter came down and said hi to us and Sierra and Christie and he also introduced us to the area authority. That was really cool. He introduced us as two of the missions best. :) That made me super happy even though he probably says that to everyone haha. But yeah. I can't remember the area authorities name but he was really nice and him and President Porter seemed very impressed with us. So yeah. Yesterday was a great day. Sherry is doing well. I think she might actually be a progressing investigator. Well, we will see tonight. Hopefully she read and is praying. She's so sweet though. I just love her. I think we can get her to be baptized by the end of the year. Just gotta keep working with her. Bekah is SUPER sick with lupis. She might be going to the hospital soon. That makes me sad. Ive been praying a lot for her. And yeah. that's who I am teaching. Hopefully I will have more people to report next week. :)

I don't think I need anything but thank you mom :) Sister Webb is doing great. Mason is still an great as ever. I love it here! The fall is SOOOOOOOOOOO beautiful. The trees are so bright and wonderful and I got to rake leaves for the first time this week! :)

Well. until next week :) I love you!

I don't miss you!

Love

Sister Shaw

Sister shaw and her investor. 

Busy Worker Bee.....

I am doing great this week. I FINALLY pushed everything aside and pushed and now I have fully given myself to the Lord. I am even having a hard time right now writing because I feel like I am being unproductive. I have hit an extreme point but it is what I need to do get Mason moving. Mason reminds me of the rancho ward, kinda a dead area. President Porter is really counting on Sister Webb and I to get this area moving. I know I can do it but I have to fully submit myself to the Lord. It is all his will.

How is Elder Esplain doing? That is sad that Elder Pumphrey is leaving. But he'll do great. :) Maybe he'll be training! But yeah. Transfers here aren't until the week of thanksgiving so you can send the boots to my apartment because if not I won't get them until transfers and that's ONLY if Sister Webb or I are getting transfered. So yeah...

Things are going well here though. Sister Webb and I really got kicked into gear on Tuesday at zone conference. We talked to President Porter because we didn't know what to do about Mason and he said that we need to either figure it out or I am pulling you out and that scared me so bad! We have pretty much been sprinting ever since then. But we are really figuring it out.Which is why these last couple of days Satan has been working really hard on Sister Webb and I but we are not giving up. We are making it happen :) But yeah. Our investigators were all having a hard week... thank you Satan but I have no doubt that it is going to get better from here. I am so excited to tell what awesome things that are going to happen this week. I love you so much and I don't miss you at all. Thanks for all that you do :)

Love

Sister Shaw

ps Sorry I don't have any pictures this week. You can look at the zone conference ones :)

Week 9 and week 10..........

Week 10......

It has been another happy week in Mason Ohio. To answer your question, no I haven't gotten my package yet but I should be getting it tomorrow. When packages get sent to the mission office they don't forward them so I have to wait until I see Presdient and Sister Porter who are gonna bring them to our zone conference tomorrow. I am super excited for zone conference. It is gonna be so great. You can maybe find some pictures of me this week mom :) I cccaaannnn go shopping but I probably wont. You can just buy a size ten in shoes and I can just wear alot of socks if they don't fit :) Theres not enough time to go shopping especially since we volunteer for 2 hours p-day. But yeah... Keep an eye out for cute head wear. I need stuff that'll keep my head warm.... But I don't know if I can wear beanies. But if you find one, send it just incase. It was cold last week.. like high of 41 but it is suppose to nice this week and then cold after that. So one more week of nice weather. But yeah. Everything is going well here. I think like 3 appointments got cancelled last week because 3 different investigators were sick. The flu is going around... I really hope I don't get sick. I would die. Blah. It's not gonna happen. But yeah. Our investigators are growing so much. We still have Sierra on date for November 23 but I will let you know next week if she is. Then we have Atsushi. The Japanese guy and we had a really great lesson with him last night. We talked about the Savior and his life on earth. It was so great! The spirit was so strong. Then we had great lessons with Sarah, Bekah, an dSherry. They are all so great. I'll let you know if anything exciting happens. They just all still want to learn more about the church which is ALWAYS a great thing :)

This was a good week though :) I think I am adjusting well to missionary life. It is fun and I can't imagine being anywhere else. I feel a need to be here. I have learned so much since being out here though. I have really learned the importance of having a Christ centered life. He needs to be the center of everything we do. If we aren't making choices that'll make us more closer to Christ then we are moving away from him. It is so much easier to have a Christ centered life on your mission but I am going to make him the center of my life forever. I know that it'll bring blessings and I will then have a Christ centered home and my family will be blessed forever :) I love you and I hope you have a great week. I don't miss you or abby or dad or anyone at all!

watch for my letter this week :)

Love

Sister Shaw

And I accidentally posted the wrong letter from last week.....so here it goes week 9....it was a good one check it out........

Holy Cow it has been a great week! So many things have happened that I am going to go by days. So last monday...

We got a new investigator. Great way to start off the week. We found her last week while we were out tracting and made an appointment with her. She use to be married to a member but he passed away a while ago and her 2 oldest kids are both baptized. She is super sweet and our lesson with her went really well. I think she is more ready for this than she thinks.

Tuesday... Was CRAZY!! So this is a really cool miracle. So Sister Webb and I were having a rough morning. Nothing seemed to be going our way. We got out of the apartment an HOUR after we planned because we forgot to make cookies for the less actives we were trying to go see. So we were already an hour behind schedule when we got a text from the member that we were going to do service for saying that she was sick (She's pregnant and due in 3 weeks) so that just added to our frustration. So we were walking down the street between less actives and I dropped the bag of cookies and sister webb stepped on the bag to cookies and we picked them up and we were just like this is what our day has been like! Not very happy at all. So we went to the less actives and they didn't answer... like always... So we went to a potential investigators who we knew wasn't going to be home so then we decided to head out down to the last less actives house so we could just get out of that area and firgure out something else out to do. On our way down to the less actives house we passed a lady taking her trash out and getting the mail. Sister Webb gave her a pass a long card and asked if she had a belief in Jesus Christ. She said yes and that she was baptized when she was 16 in Texas. She then told us that she had been praying for help and we came along. She introduced us to her daughter who asked us if she could be baptized!! CRAZY!!!! Best day ever! such a miracle. Well. We met with them last night and her daughter, Sierra, said she'd work to be baptized on Saturday November 23! CRAZY! They also told us we were their angels. So sweet.

Wednesday we had a really good lesson with our investigator Sara

Thursday was a normal day. Tracting alot.

Friday We got a new investigator Bekah. She's from Wako texas... We are pretty sure she is FLDS... So we have another lesson with her tonight so we will see how that goes... We don't really know what to do... Her mom was excommunicated from that church when Bekah was nine because she was scheduled to be married and her mom stopped it. So Bekah has had a REALLY rough past.

Saturday we had a crazy lesson with Atsushi. The members that came with us totally took over and it all went south from there.

But yeah. It was a great week. I still haven't gotten the CDs. Hopefully today. Only got a letter from you this week mom and it MADE my week. I had a couple sad dream that everyone was glad I was on a mission because they didn't have to deal with me. But yeah. Just tell Elder Pumphrey that the more you think about home the more you will lose the work. Get the members excited about the work. Start a 40 day fast in the ward where one family a day fasts for missionary work. Our ward did that and miracles are popping up like crazy!

WEll.. Sorry no pictures this week. TWO MONTHS though! It has gone by so slow and yet soooo fast!

Have a great week! I love you and don't miss you at all!

Week 10!!

HOly Cow it has been a great week! So many things have happened that I am going to go by days. So last monday...

We got a new investigator. Great way to start off the week. We found her last week while we were out tracting and made an appointment with her. She use to be married to a member but he passed away a while ago and her 2 oldest kids are both baptized. She is super sweet and our lesson with her went really well. I think she is more ready for this than she thinks.

Tuesday... Was CRAZY!! So this is a really cool miracle. So Sister Webb and I were having a ruff morning. Nothing seemed to be going our way. We got out of the apartment an HOUR after we planned because we forgot to make cookies for the less actives we were trying to go see. So we were already an hour behind schedule when we got a text from the member that we were going to do service for saying that she was sick (She's pregnant and due in 3 weeks) so that just added to our frustration. So we were walking down the street between less actives and I dropped the bag of cookies and sister webb stepped on the bag to cookies and we picked them up and we were just like this is what our day has been like! Not very happy at all. So we went to the less actives and they didn't answer... like always... So we went to a potential investigators who we knew wasn't going to be home so then we decided to head out down to the last less actives house so we could just get out of that area and firgure out something else out to do. On our way down to the less actives house we passed a lady taking her trash out and getting the mail. Sister Webb gave her a pass a long card and asked if she had a belief in Jesus Christ. She said yes and that she was baptized when she was 16 in Texas. She then told us that she had been praying for help and we came along. She introduced us to her daughter who asked us if she could be baptized!! CRAZY!!!! Best day ever! such a miracle. Well. We met with them last night and her daughter, Sierra, said she'd work to be baptized on Saturday November 23! CRAZY! They also told us we were their angels. So sweet.

Wednesday we had a really good lesson with our investigator Sara

Thursday was a normal day. Tracting alot.

Friday We got a new investigator Bekah. She's from Wako texas... We are pretty sure she is FLDS... So we have another lesson with her tonight so we will see how that goes... We don't really know what to do... Her mom was excommunicated from that church when Bekah was nine because she was scheduled to be married and her mom stopped it. So Bekah has had a REALLY rough past.

Saturday we had a crazy lesson with Atsushi. The members that came with us totally took over and it all went south from there.

But yeah. It was a great week. I still haven't gotten the CDs. Hopefully today. Only got a letter from you this week mom and it MADE my week. I had a couple sad dream that everyone was glad I was on a mission because they didn't have to deal with me. But yeah. Just tell Elder Pumphrey that the more you think about home the more you will lose the work. Get the members excited about the work. Start a 40 day fast in the ward where one family a day fasts for missionary work. Our ward did that and miracles are popping up like crazy!

WEll.. Sorry no pictures this week. TWO MONTHS though! It has gone by so slow and yet soooo fast!

Have a great week! I love you and don't miss you at all!

Week 9!

HEY HEY! :) Another great week in the GREAT cincinnati ohio mission!

So before I get to anything exciting... I have to tell you something funny that happened on tuesday. So I told you how Sister Webb totally ate it on monday while we were running... Well, the next day we were running and in the EXACT same spot... I ate it! It was soooo funny. We have been laughing about it all week and telling everyone and NO ONE thinks it's funny. I guess Sister Webb and I have gotten use to that because no one ever thinks what we have to say is funny. At least we think we are funny. Well to make the situation more funny, we have the exact same scrape too! Hopefully I can get the picture from Sister Webb. 

But yeah. I got your halloween package last monday. Thank you so much! I loved it! We are gonna put the stickers on our window today hopefully! :) Well... Nothing actually exciting happened this week... Sorry... We are still having a hard time with Elijah and his family. we had two appointment this week with them and they totally ignored us both times. I could hear them inside. It took everything in me to not just run in there. They drive me crazy sometimes but the weirdest thing is... I actually like them. they are really funny and when we are together we can feel the spirit and laugh. They are just really really flaky people. super frustrating. But it's ok because we had an amazing lesson with Atsushi! We talked to him about God and the importance of praying everyday. He has such a great desire to pray and learn. It is amazing. He is so golden. I really think that he is going to be a grat investigator because he keeps his commitments which AMAZING!!! He's awesome and we have another appointment with him on Saturday! 

Well... We are still struggling to get investigators but we fasted yesterday so we are gonna get new ones this week. We have some lessons lined up with some really solid potential investigators. 

Tell Michael I say HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I am going to try and write him a letter but I am really busy today. 

Yes I did get your package and NO I AM NOT GETTING TRANSFERED! :) I am sooo happy. I was so afraid. Actually. That is a really funny story. So we started this volunteer thing today where every monday we got to the Mason Food Pantry and stock shelves for 2 hours. So on our way there we got the transfer call. It was Elder Shirtz (The SUPER hilarious Elder in our ward) and he was like, Sister Webb you are staying and Sister Shaw you are leaving. I was freaking out and grabbed the phone and told him he was lying like 7 times and he was like nope. And you're training. I almost had a heart attack. He just started laughing and I told him I was going to kill him... I haven't changed at all! :) haha. 

Well... Thank you for being so awesome! 

I love you! 

Have a great week!

Love, Sister Shaw

Showing off there matching ouchies from falling......

A package!!!

Falling is rough....

Serving.....

Th

October 7, 2013

This was a crazy week. Alot happened. But at the same time, I feel like nothing happened. haha. I don't miss you guys, of course. But yeah. We FINALLY got a new investigators yesterday! After 3 weeks of not having one we prayed to God thanking him right after our Chapel tour with him. But yeah. Conference was sooooo great! I loved every second of it! I think my favorite talk was Edward Dube. He was the one that talked about learning from the past, not living in it. Which is some I TOTALLY do! I am so bad at that! haha. But yeah.

Something cool that happened this week. On Tuesday or Wednesday Sister Webb and I were tracting in a neighbor that we felt was dead but we did not want to go to the other neighborhood we had planned because it was a rich neighborhood and they NEVER answer the door. It is always super frustrating, but we decided that we were jsut going to go for like 30 minutes.  So we drove over there and parked. It was about 7 pm so the sun was setting and it was going to be dark in about 45 minutes. So we just started walking down the street. We walked around for probably 20 minutes and felt like none of the house were ready to be knocked on. We were about to turn around and go back when I got the prompting to just do more house. I looked around and just said lets do just this one more house. We walked up to the front door and knocked. We were not expecting anyone to answer at all but this lady opened the door with a smile on her face. We said hello and she said I was almost baptized. We brushed it off assuming that she meant in the catholic religion and asked if she had ever heard of our church before. She said yes, I was almost baptized, into your church, the mormon church. It was SO weird! She took the discussions down in Venezula. What are the chances of that? She knows EVERYTHING! She's read the while Book of Mormon, Doctrine and covenants, and pearl of great price and knows that they are true. Her only problem is the priesthood. We were so excited to meet, thinking that she was going to an investigator, but when we asked if we could come back and teach her she said no. She did not want to talk religion. She is so ready but I am not her missionary. But how crazy is that?! The only house we knocked on! We were the first people to contact her from the church in the US? So cool.

Well that's all the exciting stuff that happened this week. Tell Aaron and Dilene Pulsipher THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH FOR THE PACKAGES! I was so happy to get them! I am eating all of the candy and snacks like crazy. I really loved the pictures I got too! Thank you so much!

Have a great week! I love you!

Love

Sister Shaw

September 30th Letter

Hey mama!
so great to hear from you :) The members in Mason are so great. I love
everyone. My favorite family so far are the Hondas. They are HILARIOUS! The
parents are Puerto Rico and they are so funny. We had dinner with them
yesterday and they fed us fish and guess what... I LOVED it! First for
everything right?! :) haha. But yeah. I'm glad this week went well. Mine
was alright. The work is not moving too fast in Mason. We have a couple
investigators but we didn't get 1 this week. That was really hard on me and
I am trying really hard to not get discouraged. I think we figured out the
tool though. The youth! They love missionaries, and the work and
they invite their friends to everything so we are gonna try getting the
youth more involved with us. :)
We don't have family Home Evening and we aren't allowed to go to members
homes on monday nights so I don't have it but I'm looking forward to having
it when I get back :)
Are you guys excited for general conference!? I am! I cannot wait. I have 5
questions that I am taking to conference and I have been praying for an
answer for the last 2 weeks so I hope they get answered :) I am nervous
though. I keep getting the prompting to listen to the Prophet and do
whatever he says, so we will how this weekend goes. Hopefully it is nothing
too crazy! :)
You don't need to worry about a sweatshirt. I found a running sweatshirt at
Walmart today that was on sale so yeah. But any music will do. Any all
church music. Sister Webb has 4 CDs but they are getting kinda old now so
whateever works for you mama. :)
Well. I hoipe you have a fantasic week. I love you and all my family. I
pray for each indiviually every morning and night. I don't miss of at all
of course! Tell abby I'm gonna write her back today! Oh and I got your
package! I loved it THANK YOU! The pretzel chips are super yummy! So is
everything else :)
Love you,
Sister Shaw

September 23rd

Whoops forgot to hit post like week!! sorry folks.....it is a learning curve!!

Oh mommy it is great to hear from you!

Yeah... well... all of our investigators dropped us this week. We have this 11 year old named Elijah. He wants to be baptized so he'll probably be baptized next month. His family is not very active so we don't know what we are going to do with him yet. Our ward mission leader is going to come with us on Wednesday to help us decide where he is at. Thank goodness for President Guffy (Recently released Stake President). Our bishop right now is actually a counselor in the new stake presidency and the bishop of our ward. He is sooo busy! But this last was bishop appreciation week so we heart attacked him and made him some chocolate chip cookies. 

So funny story! On Wednesday Sister Webb and I were tracting and she ran into two guys that were sales men. We tried to talk to them about the gospel but they were not interested in that. One of them was a minister for a church here... can't remember which one... but we gave him a pass a long card. He took it and asked if Sister Webb's phone number was on it and she was like no and then he started apologizing for no reason. He was like, Oh sorry, I didn't realize you were married! hahaha. Since sister webb only has her left hand, she wears her CTR ring on her left ring finger. She totally got hit on!!! It was sooooo funny! I could not stop laughing! Way too funny! That was a great day!

but yeah, So Friday was a hard day because we planned on tracting our last 2 hours of the day but of course, it POURED rain! We were trying to talk to people while we were soaking wet. Luckily Sister webb had a jacket with a hood and I had an umbrella but no one would answer the door or anything. So that was annoying and really really really hard to love missionary work that night. The next day though, we were TOTALLY blessed by the Lord. We found like 6 potential investigators. It was really cool to see those blessings.

I've been reading my patriarchal blessing a lot and it is so comforting! I feel so blessed and loved everytime I read it. It is such a blessing to have one! So neat! God blesses me so much and I have had so many reconfirmations it is CRAZY! :)

But yeah, so this morning in personal study I was reading in 2 Nephi 27:23. (President Porter gave us the challenge to read it by Thanksgiving and the highlight the godhead in red, miracles in black, and story line in blue. it is a really cool to see how my entire book of Mormon is highlighted. Ill send it home to you when I'm done with it.)

WELL.... I still haven't gotten your package. I hope it didn't get lost. You should friend sister porter on facebook because she takes a lot of pictures so you might be able to find some there. I would like my cds and a sweatshirt I could run in if possible... I don't think I need anything else.

I love you so much! Thank you being so amazing. I am so impressed with all the letters and love I am receiving. I don't miss you at all. Of course. You're the best mom anyone could ever ask for! Sister chapa figured out that we are coming home on the March 5, 2015 transfer! Crazy right! Right before my birthday. Sad I'll Rhys and Grandpa's birthday though!

Well. I love you. Keep spreading the gospel. It is easier than you think :)

Love,

Sister Leslie Shaw

Week 3 Ohio

Hey there mama! :)

Yeah I am driving but it is all going well. I am enjoying it. Have fun camping! I am SUPER jealous! Tell everyone that I don't miss them but I will be sending out letters to everyone today hopefully! We get fed a lot! It is really nice. The people here are so great! I guess Mason was voted 7th best place to live? Random I know but it reminds me so much of Temecula! But yeah, it is nice and they are feeding us good food. I told everyone that I am lactose intolerant so I have been great! :) hahaha. but yeah, we make our own lunches :). Oh and good luck in LA! That'll be cool! I have not gotten my package yet. Hopefully sometime this week. But, we got a referral. The bishop's daughter, who is a senior  in high school and super cute and adorable! I love her. Her 2 best friends are going to the local colleges and we taught them once last week and they came to church yesterday! They are so awesome! They want to learn more and they are such miracles! They are so prepared! They are so ready for the gospel. They read 1 nephi 1 and things are looking good! I am really hoping for a baptism this transfer! That would be amazing. But God knows us and our desires. I fasted twice last week to find these 2 girls. I just keep praying that they will get baptized!! So everything is going well. I have some hard days where I just want to go home but I am fighting against that because I know I am suppose to be here. I found a CHIPOTLE here! So excited! I made Sister Webb and I go get some! SOOOO yummy! I loved it! Well. That is pretty much all I have to say. Life in the mission is really hard but when I am teaching it makes it all worth it. I love being a missionary. Keep working on finding people to teach. Tell everyone I love them. Look for a letter from me this week :)

I don't miss you ever! 

Love

Sister Shaw <3 :)