January 16th-29th, 2017 MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Hello family. I can't believe this is my last email to you. I don't even know what to say really haha. 18 months goes really fast. I have to express all my gratitude to all of you for the constant love, support, and encouragement. Most of all I'm grateful to my Heavenly Father and my Savior for allowing me to serve here for the past year and a half. As you know, I could stay here and be a missionary forever, but I know that's not the Lord's plan. There has been a lot of ups and downs, miracles, conversion, crazy people, laughter, humidity, sweat, tears, ice, and LOVE. 

This week was a blur as usual. We taught some great people. We had 3 less actives return to church this week. The Ericksons, Sister Ovitt, and the Harrisons. I love each of these families SO MUCH. Brother Erickson is legit the coolest. He's gonna cook me squirrel today because I want to try it before I leave. They always give us juice when we're there in really expensive nice glasses haha. Brother Erickson made us have a toast with our juice and said "to the Lord!...when he comes again." It was so great haha. I love crazy old people. The Ovitts have found permanent residence in my heart. Lilly wrote in her journal that she thinks the Book of Mormon is awesome. They are the most amazing kids. We taught old Jimbo, and Bruce, and Mary Ann. Pretty much every single person we're teaching whether they be less active or investigating are trying to quit smoking. Brother Higgins and Sister Harrison set a goal for being quit this Sunday since that's the day I'm leaving Warrenton. Pray for them! I know they can do it. Sister Harrison brought her grand kids to church, and 3 year old Lilly was sitting by me and leaning on my arm, she sneezed and farted simultaneously and I'm pretty sure everyone thought it was me because you couldn't see her head above the bench. ugh. We are just working so hard and I'm really putting off accepting the fact that my time is drawing to an end. Not a lot of time today, because I'm going to the temple. But we had a great week. 

Saying goodbye to these people will probably be the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I've been holding it together pretty well until today. St. Louis will always be sacred ground to me, my heart will always be here. I found God here, I found myself here. "for whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it." Christ is the reason!

AREAS: St. Louis YSA, Mahomet, Fenton, Warrenton

COMPANIONS: Walker, Whitmarsh, Shontell, Holland, Grover, Christensen, Bishop, Hulme, Nelson, Ball

PEOPLE that changed my life: Dominique, Chance, Haley, Kurt, Sonja and Dennis, Nick, Morefields, Ande, Raji, Kayla, Caleb, Jim, Justin, Ovitts, Erickson, Harrisons, Higgins and soooooooooo many more. 

My heart is overflowing with gratitude. The experiences I've had here are so sacred to me. They say that your most important convert is yourself. I am completely converted to the Lord Jesus Christ. His gospel is who I am now. I've seen Him in the recovering addict, the repentant sinner, the broken family, in the pages of my scriptures, and felt his constant love every day. My mission will continue forever, my purpose will just slightly change. I have faith in the plans the Lord has for me, I'm excited for the future. I will see you on Monday! XOXO 

 "I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy." 

for the last time,

Sister Broadhead

January 9th-16th, 2017

Hola Familia.

Another great week. I'm trying to remember what happened because it flew by. So i've told you about freezing rain here... and this weekend we were supposed to get another massive ice storm. In fact, Missouri called for "a state of emergency" i was a little nervous honestly. Warrenton didn't get hit too bad. On the way home from O'fallon we did see like 5 semis upside down in the ditches and a lot of salt trucks and cops and tow trucks. Pretty crazy. Church was cancelled because of the ice. That's the second time church was cancelled this transfer. Ugh! I hate when we don't have church. I need the Sacrament, and so do the people we teach. Well, really everybody does haha. 

We had good lessons. My creativity lately is insane. We wanted to teach the Ovitts how important reading their Book of Mormon is, so we taught them the Iron Rod song, and talked about what the word of God is and how it can help us, and then we explained this game we were going to play. Sister Ball and I had previously strung up 130 yards of yarn alllllll over their yard. Around the front yard, back yard, through the trees, like this giant obstacle course. We told them the only rule was to not let go of the iron yarn. They were blindfolded and one of us tempted one and was the Holy Ghost for the other, and vice versa. Sooo hilarious people. They loved it. But then once they were done they were like "your turn!" and made us do it, they were horrible helpers haha I'm pretty sure i have a concussion from the mailbox and they were just CRACKING up. We also taught Jim, and Bruce, and Mary Ann, Brother Higgins... the works. I love the people we teach. Teaching Jim is so cool because he knows so much about the gospel already and I just desire the blessings of the temple for him so badly!! He is SO CLOSE but has decided he won't be ready by the 28th. Dominik's mom also would not consent to him being baptized either :( kind of a discouraging week, but we have faith that things will work out for these people. 

Words cannot describe how much I love this work! Sorry about the short email but we have to go.... too much to do! We couldn't email yesterday because of MLK day and we have a lot of proselyting to do. TTYL. Keep it real ya'll. I LOVE YOU!!! 

January 2nd-9th, 2017

FAMILY. 

Holy smokes this week was incredible. I don't even know where to start. Probably with the best part. KURT AND EMILY GOT SEALED. No words can describe how I feel about it. Seeing Kurt in the House of the Lord. WOW. Obviously he doesn't have family to be at the temple with him, it was pretty much just me and Halee (the girl that introduced him to the church) and the YSA Bishopric (yeah, it's a ward now.) But when he walked into the sealing room, the first thing he said was a hushed whisper to Emily and he said "Sister Broadhead is here!" my heart exploded. It was the highlight of my whole entire mission. Every thing was worth it to see Kurt-o in the holy temple. After the ordinance when they let people talk to them on the way out I just hugged them and cried haha. I'm such a baby these days. I could barely get out the words "i'm so proud of you" they cried too, so that made me feel better. Took lots of pictures, and they made me be in them! I tried to get out of it and told them it was a family event but they wanted me in them which actually meant a lot to me. BEST DAY EVER PEOPLE. 

We had good lessons with the Ovitts, Jim, Bruce, Mary Ann, and the Higgins. So many good times. It snowed the day we went to teach the Ovitts and we had a really quick snow ball fight before the lesson. I taught them what white washing was, and lo and behold they white washed me like 3 times haha. Brother Higgins is like the all time coolest and funniest person ever, basically our best friend. I am so proud of him this week!! He's been reading his Book of Mormon so diligently AND he quit smoking cigarettes!! He has a dumb e cig that he's using to get off the cigarettes but it's making him sick, so he can't smoke that either! YAY! On Sunday he texted us that he wasn't coming to church and I was like NOOOOO so between ward council and church we went over and knocked knocked knocked knocked. Called called called called. Texted texted texted texted. I even threw rocks at his window to try and wake him up hahaha. Turns out he was sooooo sick from his e cig and didn't hear any of it. He was cracking up when we told him that we threw rocks at his windows and called me "the homie" haha. I will do anything to help him be ready to baptize Dominik. Unfortunately he only has the boys every other weekend :(

Time continues to fly. Quick funny story, there is this lady that comes to church every once in a while who is cray cray. She lives in a nursing home and yeah she's just crazy. But she calls on Sunday and says "i'm pullin up to church, I NEED YOU! Come outside!" so we go running outside the member that picked her up is getting her out of the car and into her wheelchair and she says i need to go to the bathroom NOW!!! I was like oh my gosh okay! She was like HURRY! hahaha so i am pushing her sooo fast in her wheelchair cruise up the ramp, into the church, and into the bathroom. I had to push her right into the stall and barely turned around by the time it went down. She is loudly narrating EVERYTHING and the stall wouldn't close with the wheel chair in there so I had to stand in the open gap and just smiled at everyone that came in and acted like nothing was wrong hahaha. Sister Ball was cracking up. Then she tells me she needs help... i look at sister ball and mouth "please no" hahah. I'll spare you the details, but I will say there was minor gagging and i accidentally gave her a wedgie hahahah. She was cracking up and said "now don't give me a wedgie you crazy sister!" hahaha there was a big ordeal when she wanted to bare her testimony too... there was a lot of eye signals and mouthing to the Bishop and deacon on the stand. Turns out they don't have a portable mic so the deacon had to wheel her up there and they lowered the pulpit and mic as far down as it would go and you couldn't see her but you could hear her and it was hilarious. She went on to completely roast us in front of the whole congregation but that's a long story for another time haha. 

I basically love being a missionary. Life is always an adventure. So many good times and good laughs. I hope you had a good week! Remember how much Heavenly Father loves you! I'm so grateful for all of you!! xoxo

December 26th - January 2nd, 2017

Family! Hello.

This week was good. I'm trying to remember what happened haha. It seems like a blur!! We taught a lot of cool people. Bruce, Jim, Ovitts, Higgins, Leila, Mary Anne... love them all! The things that stand out to me the most this week was teaching the Higgins and bringing hope and love to a broken family. We gave the Higgins boys pictures of Jesus for Christmas and they put them on their bed so they see it all the time  We also gave them prayer rocks a while ago and when we asked Dominic if he prayed he said "yes because i hit my head on my rock." i was like "perfect." haha. They came to church and FINALLY stayed for Primary and they loved it. We taught them about the Sabbath Day this week, it was the funniest thing ever. We brought all our condiments like ranch, ketchup, mustard, syrup, bbq sauce, shake shake cheese, and just all this stuff. On the way we stopped at McDonalds and got two ice cream sundaes and hid them in our bags haha. We start the lesson and pull out the condiments one by one asking them if they like them! They said they liked almost all of them. So we're like perfect, we brought you ice cream sundaes and we know you like this stuff so we're just going to put in on. I start dumping ranch and bbq sauce on and the look on their face was priceless. They were so upset hahahaha. I was like "what you said you like these things!!" They said "yeah but not on an ice cream sundae!" So we went on to talk about how there are many good things we can do with our time, but some are not good to do on Sunday :) 

So i can't remember if i told ya'll that the Bishop challenged us to contact every member of the ward and it has been hilarious. There are members that live in the full blown WILDERNESS it seems like! So many people on our ward list that nobody knows if they exist or really live there.... so we've been trying to find them. It has resulted into driving into ditches, accidentally driving into grassy fields and not being able to find the way out, crawling past windows, running away when automatic lights turn on, sneaking into gated communities, and a LOT of getting lost haha. Being a missionary is basically like being a secret agent. We've almost done the whole ward though! 

I'm SO EXCITED for Kurt and Emily's sealing on Saturday!!!!

I can't believe it's 2017. I hope you all thought about ways you can be better this year. It's all about improvement and progression.

1. lost inside the gated community and Bailey's car wouldn't go up the hill

2. the Lewis family 

3. Noah Higgins 

4. Me and Noah waiting for his dad after church 

5. sneaking past purple trees ( in MO if people paint their trees purple it means they will shoot you haha. we're committed to win the challenge though)

I love you guys! Have a great week!!! Thank you for the continued love and support! 

December 19th-26th, 2016

Hello Family ! It was so fun talking to you. I realized I basically forgot to tell you like all the things I was planning on telling you. Somehow my brain just forgot all of it once I heard your voices! Oh well. This week was incredible, as usual. I also forgot to tell you the library was closed yesterday so we are emailing today, obviously. Next week the library will be closed on Monday again. Mom, thank you for the Christmas package! I really appreciate it, so did Sister Ball. 

We had a Christmas Zone Conference that was the best thing on the planet. So spiritual, emotional, funny, and memorable. Had to be there though, so I won't even try to describe my feelings. Okay well maybe I'll try. President Bateman's dad came, and he's the coolest. He used to be the presiding Bishop of the church, and has had many other great callings. Moral of the story he's a spiritual giant. We had some hilarious skits, white elephant gift exchange, and incredible musical numbers. At one point I was dared to try bacon flavored toothpaste that tastes like canned dog food and I almost didn't make it to the bathroom before I threw up all my lunch. We learned all about LIGHT and it was awesomeeeeee.

Christmas eve and Christmas were so fun. Spent lots of time with awesome members that we love so much. Got to play games which was awesome. So much laughter. On Christmas as I told you over Skype, we began our day at 3:55 am so we could make it to Bishop Vellinga's by 5:00 am. Church by 9:00. After that, we really wanted to do some form of service. So we went to the Warrenton nursing home to sing people songs! We handed out candy canes and visited with some sweet spirits. We told everyone before we sang to them "now we're not very good... but here we go!" and after they always smiled and clapped and said we sounded like angels. They honestly probably couldn't hear us hahaha. Then we went to the Davidson's and Portillo's. I just love the members out here. They are incredible people and such good examples to me. 

I just love Christmas, and being a missionary during this time of year is incredible. The reason i made the subject what it is, was a quote i heard by Neal A. Maxwell that says "each of us is an innkeeper who decides if there is room for Jesus." I hope we can all make room for the Savior in our lives, not just at this time of year, but all the time. One more quote by President Monson, "may the spirit of love which comes at Christmas time fill our homes and our lives and linger there long after the tree is down."

Sister Broadhead

December 12th-19th, 2016

Family. Buckle up for a long email. Let me just preface this whole week with, I LOVE MY WHOLE LIFE. 

This past week has been incredible. I don't know how it keeps getting better and better but somehow is is. So we've been teaching Jim, his wife and step daughters are members and he's been taught on and off for almost 2 years. I have been frustrated because I don't know his concern, like there have been great missionaries here and I kept thinking if they couldn't help him, either could I. I don't know what it was, but we had the most spiritual lesson about the Restoration. I think what made it so amazing was he had heard the "story" and the history of the Restoration so many times. But he needed to hear testimonies of it, so we obviously bore ours, but so did his wife and daughters. His wife gave one of the most heartfelt testimonies I've ever heard. She said with tears in her eyes, "Jim I think you already know it's true. I've seen it. We've had so many great experiences. What are you waiting for?" The spirit spoke to me so clearly to invite him to be baptized. When I came into the ward the ward mission leader told us NOT to invite him to baptism, that it makes him feel pressured. His family even said he always flat out says NO to invites. But the prompting was so clear! I was so scared and i'm pretty sure my voice cracked when I asked him, but I said "Jim, I echo your wife, we have all felt the spirit tonight, will you prepare yourself to be baptized on January 28th?" He said "Yes. Yes I will." His wife about fell out of her chair. I almost said "wait really?" but refrained haha. #MIRACLE

So the temperatures have been SO COLD. Missouri is brutal in the winter haha. There is this thing here called freezing rain. Ohhhhh boy. Friday morning everyone was texting us "be careful driving!" and "be careful out there!" We were like so confused because the weather looked fine haha. But we stepped outside and it was "misting" which is like a half pathetic rain. It happens here all the time. But it was so cold that it was freezing almost instantly when it landed. (I ask everyone why it doesn't turn to snow and they give some long scientific explanation) So we walk out the door and we're like "oh it's just misting no biggy whatever" then we walk down the steps of our apartment and onto the parking lot which is a hill by the way, and instantly we just start sliding down the hill like no control it was hilarious hahahaha. I was wearing boots with NO traction and just went sliding, I could not stop. Trying to get back up the hill was even funnier. Needless to say I changed my boots. But ever our car was completely encased in pure solid ice. I'm not kidding people when I say everything had a layer of ice. It was INSANE. So we tried driving around for a few hours and it was terrifying. Talk about white knuckle driving. I kept saying "I am just WAITING for cars to get grounded." A few hours later the zone leaders texted and said we could't drive anymore. Sister Ball was like "well now what?" I was like "we are agents unto ourselves and we are going to ACT and not be ACTED UPON!" (that's a big thing in the mission these days, being agents unto ourselves) I was trying to work it out in my head where we could go and we have already tracted like a 3 mile radius around our apartment when we were out of miles last month. The only thing I could think of was Walmart and a bunch of restaurants are like 2 and a half miles away and that is the only place where people would be because Warren-town is a GHOST town after like 5 pm. So we decided we were going to try and "walk" up there. We layered up and girded up our loins and straight up SKATED to Walmart it was the funniest thing ever. We almost biffed sooo many times. It was the slipperiest ice I've ever experienced. Dare I say it was more slippery than an actual ice rink. At one point I was just holding onto Sister Ball's bag while she walked on the grass and was like surfing. She was just towing me. So fun. We walked across the interstate no problem because it was like a parking lot. People were giving us the STRANGEST looks and yelling out their windows if we needed a ride haha. We finally got to Walmart and got to help these people fix their car that had slid off the road! Well, I know nothing about cars, so I held the flashlight. When I asked if we could help I was like "well, I don't know much about what you're tryng to fix, but when I would help my dad I usually just held the light and handed him tools. Can we do that?" hahaha it was fun. They were like "who are you and why are you out in this weather trying to help people?" I was SO PROUD to explain we are representatives of Jesus Christ and we just try to do what He would do :) On the way back we had another awesome experience. This guy yelled out to us if we needed a ride, we didn't but we yelled back to him if we could talk to him about Jesus Christ. He had us come over to his doorway to try and stay warm and we explained to him about the Restoration and Book of Mormon (in the freezing rain) and after our conversation he said "you know what, I was fixin to go out and get more dope. But I don't think I'm gonna do that anymore." #HOLLA SO many miracles. When we were almost back we saw one more guy walking and we tried to talk to him but he said "I gots to go, I just got outta jail, well, I'm not supposed to be out yet, but I hafta get me some cigarettes before I go back!" and walked off. I was like uhhhhhh should we call someone? hahhahah. 

We also dropped off two trash bags of presents to Jerry for the girls to open on Christmas :) SO fun doing that. We told Jerry we were just gonna get a soccer ball, and when we walked in he was like "whoa. That's more than a soccer ball." hahahaha 

This whole week rocked. We are making every minute count and not wasting any time because time is so short! 

SKYPE INFO! We're going to the Davidson's after church. We have it at 9:00 which I'm pretty sure is 8 your time? Maybe I have that backwards. But we'll probs call around 1:00 our time which is noon in UT. If i have that wrong just email Sister Davidson. She's the homie. 

This Christmas has been so special. Christmas as a missionary is one of the most sacred times. I can't even describe my feelings. Being focused on the Savior and trying to do what he would do just really changes hearts. SO MUCH LOVE. 

pics - i sent a before and after pic of the freezing rain, my hair was frozen like that hahah it got so wet and the froze. I was so scared it was going to break off!! in the selfie, I would like to point out the snot that was also frozen hahaha disgusting i know. 

I LOVE YOU GUYS! HAVE A GOOD WEEK! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

December 5th-12th, 2016

Sorry this email is later than usual, we were doing a big service project this morning. 

I don't even know where to start. Let me just tell you about the Ovitts and Christmas. So we were trying to get the ward to help out with their Christmas but it was too late we're pretty sure. So we were venting to our district about their whole situation and we made a whole game plan for operation Ovitt Christmas (OOC). I am SO EXCITED. We have the money from mom, and members give us money to "go out to lunch" a lot but we've been saving it for OOC. Also we were going to do a gift exchange in the district but instead we put our funds towards OOC and we have a large sum of money to get them gifts! SO excited. Also, the elders that had this apartment before us were clearly piles, and there's like little basketball hoops and a mini Foosball table and stuff that we're giving to them. Christmas is gonna be awesome. As far as their teaching goes, they are doing so great! We gave them a primary CD so they could know some songs when they come to church and now we have opening and closing songs. They love to do Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam and we hop up every time it says "beam" even Jerry participates it's soooo funny. The first time we put on the CD the song that came on was I Feel My Savior's Love and they had the strangest reaction, they just got up and hugged their grandma and listened to the whole song. I was basically crying. They loved it. They came to the Christmas party and members were literally congratulating us on getting them there haha. We love them so much :) I had to stand in line at the Christmas party with those girls for FORTY FIVE MINUTES to see Santa. If that's what parenthood is like, I'm out. They were like sitting on the floor so impatient it was so funny. 

We also had great lessons with Bruce this week, he's been sober for like 25 days now! We're so proud of him for quitting. Next step, he's got to quit smoking! It's gonna be a long road for him, but he wants to get baptized and he's totally changing his life. He's the best. He's like an old cowboy and he was burning all his old documents lolol didn't know people did that. But he let me wear his cowboy things while we helped him. Being a missionary is SO FUN. 

We had another Stake Conf this weekend, and the Stake Center is like an hour and a half away so we decided to watch the broadcast at our building with some other members. We get there and the broadcast is NOT set up haha. People are just chit chatting and not even worrying. Time comes for it to start and one guy is scrambling trying to set it up and it's not working at all haha. So we sang Christmas songs for like an hour until he gave up and just called the Stake President and President Lewis put his phone on the pulpit and the guy put his phone on the pulpit and we listened to Stake Conference via speaker phone. Good times. We could hardly hear, but it was cool to see so many saints straining to hear the words of their church leaders. We had a less active come with us and he just kept leaning over and whispering quite loudly "this sounds like air traffic control! I have no idea what's being said!" I just nodded and put my finger up to my lips to shush him hahaha i was cracking up because mom always did that to me and i hated it. 

Basically time is flying. I blink and another week goes by. I hate it. I want to be a missionary forever. This is the first day of my last transfer and I'm literally depressed over it (well not literally, I'm still quite happy.) Sister Ball is so cute and at night when we're laying in bed she'll be like "how are you doing with the whole going home soon thing?" and I'm like "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT I'M IN DENIAL NEVER BRING IT UP AGAIN!" She's like "okay sorry!" hahahaha we are besties. 

Have a great week family. I'm so grateful for all of you. I know as sure as the sun is shining that God lives. That he KNOWS us. He sent His Son because He loves us. There is no other way back to the Father except through the Son. I'm so grateful for the Savior of the world!! Remember to #LightTheWorld this week!!!!! 

--

Sister Broadhead