The no snow no show‏ January 25, 2016

Hey everyone!

Last Tuesday we were supposed to have a lesson with this one guy but
when we knocked on his door no one answered! He clearly saw us through
the window so we tried the doorbell but he still didn't get up. We
decided to borrow some snow shovels and went back to shovel his
driveway. We left a note that said "Love, the Sisters" so we'll try
him another time and see if anything changes! Kill em with kindness.
;)

On Wednesday we watched a worldwide missionary broadcast where we
listened to Elder Anderson, Elder Bednar, Sister Oscarson, and some
other general authorities. It was so cool to think that the other
75,000+ missionaries around the world were watching it at the same
time! Something even more exciting, I saw a few sisters that I was in
the MTC with and my friend Chandler Richardson in the audience! Some
of my favorite things from the broadcast...1. Be an agent, not an
object. 2. All efforts bring blessings. 3. Teaching is more than just
talking; it's observing, listening, and discerning.

Sister Strong and I went over one day to visit the Hale family to get
to know them more and share a quick message with them. When we got
there we found out it was Brother Hale's birthday and they insisted we
come with them to Cracker Barrel for dinner! Afterwards we had
cupcakes to celebrate. :) It was so much fun!

We finally had a lesson with our investigator Lauren!! I think we
found her like my first week and have been briefly keeping in contact
with her but have never been able to sit down and talk until now. The
greatest thing ever is that she's been reading the Book of Mormon this
whole time and she's a little over 1/3 of the way done with it. That
is huge! HUGE! If people read it they are so much more in tune with
the Spirit and ultimately they can come to know that the scriptures
and everything else in the gospel are true because it links it all
together. I love the Book of Mormon so much! Lauren is such an amazing
lady who has been battling cancer for 7 months. Her positive attitude
towards life and faith in God are already solid, I can't wait to see
her come even closer to Christ.

Okay, one last story! It was Saturday night, about 8:30, and we knew
we needed to utilize our last half hour really well. We were planning
on trying a couple potentials from the area book but then a name of a
less active member popped in my head. We looked up her address and
realized she lived about 10 minutes away and didn't think it was worth
it, but I felt strongly like we needed to go! We followed the gps and
it lead us to the right street, however we couldn't find the right
house. We almost turned back but instead went farther up the street
and found an apartment complex with the address! We didn't have a
number for her but we prayed and Sister Strong got the impression we
should try 2417, so we did...and no one answered. Then I distinctly
heard in my head that we needed to knock on the door with the green
doormat. We turned around, and down the hall was a green doormat! We
tried it and met the cutest young couple ever, Chris and Carol! They
were happy we stopped by and we set up an appointment for this coming
week to teach them more! I know without a doubt that we were led to
them because we followed the promptings of the Holy Ghost. I know that
when we are on the Lord's errand He will always help us know what to
do and where to go, even if it's little by little.

Happy three months! :)

Love,
Sister Irwin

Pigs are man's best friend!‏ January 18, 2016

First things first, I have to do shout outs to some January
birthdays!!! To my wonderful parents: you guys don't look a day over
25! To my best friend Jackie: I've loved growing up with you over the
past 13 years! To my amazing companion who probably won't even see
this: you're the best ever, thanks for putting up with me!

This week we met Rilla, and her grandchildren Egypt and Nick! Very
very sweet family. They've been through a lot but they know the most
important things are the gospel and family. They have a barbie room in
their house that's full of collector barbies - it's so fun! Then one
night we ate dinner with the Reeves and they have a room with star
wars collectibles everywhere! I took a lot of pictures in both. :)

This past week we met with Sister Hackleman who is the most energetic
woman I've ever met! She told us of her passion for missionary work
and some stories about her son who's on his mission right now. She got
us so pumped about the ward's new mission plan and how to involve
members more. Apparently there's a book called The Everyday Missionary
that she read and it inspired her. We were talking with her for about
two hours and left her house feeling so enthusiastic and high on life
it was great!

That's it for this week. Thanks for all your love and support! :)

Love,
Sister Irwin

P.S. I think it's hilarious that there are two families in the branch
that have a pet pig! This is the Brendel's pig Bella who is a little
feisty and bites if you're not careful. They had to feed her cheerios
so we could get close enough for the picture haha!

"Many are cold, few are frozen"‏ January 11, 2016

If you get the pun then congratulations! Sadly, I didn't make it up
haha. We've reached negative degrees people! It was -4 when we got up
yesterday morning!

This past week we've been able to meet a lot more of the members from
Cottonwood! The Ford's are the cutest old couple ever and gave us a
bag of snacks before we left. They both served missions in their youth
and have served a few as a couple. Sister Ipsen is so nice and has an
adorable two year old who loves sacrament meeting because every time
he screams "I see the bread!" Sister Stanley is the young women's
president and she is the best! She's so fun and bubbly. We're actually
going out to lunch with her in about an hour. :)

Zone training was awesome! I always love when a bunch of missionaries
get together for a meeting because the spirit is so strong and
everyone builds each other up. :) We talked about faith, how to extend
better commitments, and the Book of Mormon!

We have chat back at the trail center! Since it's dead season we have
less tours so now we get to go in the back room on the computers and
help people who go to Mormon.org with questions they need answered. I
haven't done it since the MTC and I'm glad we're doing it again
because I love it!

Shane came to church yesterday!!! I can't remember if I've talked
about him before but he is the coolest dude ever. He's bald and looks
like a tough guy and we were honestly intimidated the first time we
met him but he is the sweetest person ever! A real softie. :) He
stayed for the first two hours and afterwards texted us and thanked us
so much saying he really enjoyed it. We are meeting with him some time
this week!

Here's a funny story to end this email: When it snows a lot you get a
lot of snowbanks along the side of the road. Every time I get in and
out of the car it's a struggle! One time I slipped and fell on the
snowbank and was laughing so hard I couldn't get up for a solid five
minutes. The end. :)

Love,
Sister Irwin

P.S. It's the abominable snow man!!!! This has to be a world record!
(We didn't build it we just saw it and had to take a picture)

We had to say goodbye to the Deurksen's and the Ellis'! :( I'm going to miss these oldies but goodies!

HELLO 2016!‏ January 4, 2016

Wow! I haven't emailed since last year! :)

Haha on Monday we were grounded again because of the snow which was
kinda bummy since it was P day, but remember that awesome family I
wrote about last week? Brother and Sister Hettinger dropped us off at
the library to email and afterwards they needed to go to Target so we
came with them to buy our groceries!

Nothing too exciting happened this week; we had four actual
appointments but they all canceled except for one. On New Year's Day
we went out to lunch with our investigator Neil and Brother Farrer. He
asked a million questions about EVERYTHING. He's very intellectual and
we had some great conversations about the plan of salvation. We didn't
get to set up another lesson because of his work schedule, but
hopefully we get to see him soon. He is awesome! After that we helped
The Lundmark's clean the house they just moved out of. It's funny
because they moved out of Walnut Creek and into Cottonwood so we'll
still be with them! By the way we now have five hours of church
meetings every Sunday instead of three woohoo! We went to our new ward
for the first time and were able to meet some people. Both sacrament
meetings were so wonderful! One of the young men in our branch acts
like he's a tough guy and loves to joke with us all the time. He got
into some trouble with the law not to long ago and just recently
started coming back to church. He shared his testimony and it was so
sweet because he started tearing up and thanked everyone for the
kindness they've shown to him. Jesus Christ's atonement and the gospel
can heal any heart!

Chandler Myers leaves for Fortaleza Brazil this week!! I still can't
believe we got our mission calls on the same day! She went to a
semester of college first but now she's reporting and it's so
exciting! If anyone can get in contact with her before she leaves tell
her that I said good luck and that she's going to have the time of her
life. :)

Hope everyone has a splendid week!

Love,
Sister Irwin

P.S. All of the decorations and gingerbread houses were finally taken
down! Sad day. Luckily I was able to catch a picture of one of my
favorites!

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas December 28, 2015

...Except it's not a dream, it's real life! We weren't supposed to get
any snow but we got about a foot on Christmas Eve! I shoveled my first
driveway. :) We had quite the adventure that day. I always wanted one
of those crazy mission stories and well, here is one! The weather was
awful and we got the text saying our cars were grounded but we were
already on our way to the trail center! Luckily Sister Strong is from
Utah and she knows how to drive in snow! We were fine all the way
there until we started going down a hill to pick up some other sisters
in their apartment. We thought we could make it slowly down but we hit
the curb and ended up turning completely around and slid down the hill
backwards! It was the scariest/funniest thing of my life because it
was in slow motion and the whole time there was a lady standing
outside in her front yard looking at us with a look of horror on her
face! It was priceless. We slid to a stop next to the curb so we
decided to just leave the car there and walked the rest of the way
with the sisters because the trail center was only a block away. About
an hour into our shift, we got a phone call saying that someone had
hit our car! We drove with the Crandall's over to where our car was,
but before we got there ANOTHER car had hit the car that hit us! But
wait, it gets better. We were going to park at the top of the hill and
Elder Crandall started putting the breaks on but we slid down and hit
yet another car that was parked. Luckily no one got hurt that was
involved but we kept slipping and sliding all over that hill; it was a
scene. It took about two hours to move all the cars down to a safe
spot and we were blessed to have all the neighbors and some other
missionaries come out and help us with their snow blowers and shovels!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! Holidays are really fun on the
mission and I'm happy we got to go caroling a few times last week. We
went Monday with the Van Haaften's, Tuesday with the zone, Thursday
with the trail center sisters! Christmas Eve we had a wonderful dinner
and program put on by the senior couples. They are the best! It's like
having a million grandparents and I love them all so much. Christmas
was so much fun! We opened gifts and had brunch with the Ellis' and
got to facetime our families!!! That was the best gift ever. :) We
also spent the day with the Van Haaftens, Bennetts, Cardys, and
Andersons, playing games and eating food!

There's another family in our branch, the Hettingers, that has 11 kids
and we were over at their house last night for dinner! Everyone was in
the kitchen at once helping with the food and it was so crazy and loud
but it was a party! They are such fun to be around. I think I have
almost all their names memorized haha still working on it. They
measured us on the height wall and we got to write our names! Even
though all the kids are younger than me, like half of them are taller.
But it's okay they already called me on a mission and I didn't even
have to grow a foot or two! ;)

The other day I took this awesome family on tour and they took three
Book of Mormons! Books of Mormon? Books of Mormons? Copies of the Book
of Mormon! That was so exciting.

Well, I love you all and Happy New Year!!

Love,
Sister Irwin

In a cornfield far far away...‏ December 21, 2015

It's almost Christmas!!! And it seems like the only thing people ever
talk about is the new Star Wars movie that just came out. I'm sad I
can't go, someone tell me if it's any good! Apparently there's a
special new movie theater somewhere in Nebraska that's all Star Wars
themed! Nebraska is just the best all around. The people here are so
friendly and they LOVE to talk. My companion and I were able to meet
with an inactive family and we were probably sitting there listening
to them talk for about an hour until we got to our lesson! But it was
still awesome to see them because I think what they really need right
now are some friends.

This week after district meeting, Sister Strong and I went with Sister
Funk and Sister Fronk to this little French cafe and I had a croque
monsieur! Maybe the reason I thought I'd be serving my mission in
France is because there's quite a bit of French culture here believe
it or not. We actually live in a suburb of Omaha called Papillion -
which means butterfly.

Other happy new from this week:

I took the cutest bunch of kids on tour the other day and they loved
it! Miss Grady's 1st grade class.

We found three potential investigators while tracting who already know
people in the branch!

Sister Strong and I are still in Walnut Creek! Plus President wants us
to also cover part of Cottonwood since it's such a big area and ours
is pretty small. That means working with the other sisters and somehow
trading off when we go to their ward/meetings/a whole other group of
members to work with. We're still not exactly sure how that's going to
work but it will be great! :)

Since Christmas is this Friday, I just want to share a few of my
thoughts about the Savior. I know that God loves us so much that He
sent His Son for all of us. I know that without Jesus Christ we would
not have the hope, peace, and joy that come from having faith in Him
and His infinite atonement. Make sure to remember the true meaning of
Christmas and share it with others! Do something nice for someone. Do
something nice for someone anonymously. Charity is the pure love of
Christ. :) I'd like to challenge you all to think of a gift you want
to give the Savior this coming year. Whether it be a positive
attribute you want to work on or a bad habit you want to quit, the
choice is up to you! When we think about all that the Savior has done
for us personally, it shouldn't be hard to think of just one think to
give him. I know that doing this will bless your lives and help you
become more like Him!

I love you all dearly and hope everyone has the best Christmas ever!
It really is the most wonderful time of the year. :)

Love,
Sister Irwin

tc sister love :)

It's Official!‏ December 14, 2015

So today Sister Strong and I went to downtown Omaha to this cute
shopping center called Old Market. There's a bunch of antique stores
and boutiques that I probably could've spent all day in. The sisters
in this mission all have matching sister rings and I finally got mine!
Now I'm officially a NOM missionary. ;)

This week was awesome! We went with the Snyder family to carol to a
member in the hospital. He's recovering from a bad car accident and
was really glad that we came to visit! On Wednesday we had Christmas
zone conference and a talent show! Our whole zone wore ugly sweaters
and sang happy birthday to president since it's his birthday today. We
had him come up on the stage and threw balloons at him, it was great!

Transfers are this week! We're both most likely staying together in
Walnut Creek so that's a relief! It's sad though because Sisters
Howes, Durrans, and Gray from the trail center plus our sister
training leader Sister Allen are all going home this week. On a
happier note, I was able to take a really great tour on Friday. The
two ladies were Helen and Emily and we had a good discussion. I shared
with them why I decided to serve and they asked so many questions
about our church. At the end they both took a Book of Mormon! That was
the day we tried to switch shifts because I had a doctor's appointment
that I've been needing to go to but I had to reschedule for tomorrow.
The tour was around the same time that I would've been at the doctors.
Heavenly Father knows our needs better than we do! I know I needed to
be there for that specific tour.

EXCITING NEWS! Connie and her daughter Makaela both came to church
yesterday!!!! That was so happy! More details to come on them. :)

Hope everyone has a fabulous week and good luck with finals!

Love,
Sister Irwin