Serving in the Las Vegas Nevada Mission

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Drum roll Please! July 6th 2015


IM HAVIN A BABY GIRL!!!!!!!!! 
Yep you heard that right! She is due to arrive this July 8th around 10 am! (aka, I'm training a new missionary and she will get off the plane Wednesday morning!!) 
It’s super exciting!! I really do feel a little like an expecting parent though....I'm nervous because I’m not sure that i am really cut out for the job. But i know that it is going to be so fun and so rewarding!!!
This week was Crazy, my companion Sister Onorato has been preparing to leave for home. She actually left this morning. And I will be jumping around from different temporary companions till I go up to Vegas on Wednesday to get my new missionary!!!
We went and saw a lot of members so my comp could say good bye, and I LOVE THE PEOPLE HERE! They are so amazing!!! I am so blessed to be serving here. One of the members we had dinner with this week heard that Sister Onorato and I have the same birthday, so they threw us a mini birthday party! Because they knew sister O was leaving before her birthday. It was fun, it was just us and the two of them but we had a blast.
We had an interesting lesson this week.....we street contacted into a guy who said we could come back...and when we went back for the first lesson we realized he had some mental problems and it wasn’t the best idea for sisters to be over there....and I’m just gunna leave it at that. 
Mark, our recent convert was in town for a few days so we got to have the second new member lesson with him finally!! He is doing great; it makes me so happy whenever I see him because He is so happy!!
Our 4th of July was so fun! We went and volunteered at the 4th of July 4 mile firecracker race. And then we went out and did service for some families! I got to cut our bishop's wife’s hair and his two daughters! 
Oh but we had a huge miracle happen! One of our members owns a gas station and she told us to go stop by and get a treat for the 4th of July, so we did, and we got talking to one of the young men who work there, Andrew. We told him who we were and talked about missionaries, and then just started asking him about himself. Nothing really huge. But then the next day at church our member came up to us and told us that our conversation with Andrew sparked something so after we left he was talking with her son in law who is the manager and he asked what it would take to get baptized into our church. The only hold up is he is apostolic and his mother is not very fond of the church. So we will see what happens!! I’m excited!! 
We had our last District meeting of the transfer and had a blast, we have a fun group of missionaries here. And next transfer its all changing up. 4 of us will be training new missionaries, and that’s the majority of our stake. So I’m excited!!
Tomorrow i will drive up to stay in Vegas with another sister who will be training while we wait for our new missionaries. And today Sister Onorato left so I have a youth as my companion for the next 24 hours. It’s pretty fun!!! I can’t wait to find out who I will be training!! 
I love you all! I hope everything is going well!!!
Love
 Sister Loveless


Oh also random funny story. We went to a member’s house and they handed me a coke not realizing what it said on the back....we thought it was pretty perfect!


Hot Hot Hot! June 22nd 2015

Well its summer in Kingman! We are actually the coldest place in the mission right now, and it has been around 105* or more all week! So I am thankful that I am here, that’s for sure! And Kingman is pretty much the best place ever!!
This has been an amazing week! And so was last week!! Last week, I got to go on exchanges with Sister Herman In Lake Havasu (and its 10* hotter there...yikes! But I am working on my tan hahaha) It was a great day! I love exchanges; I love the opportunity to learn from other missionaries, it’s always an answer to prayers for me. Our goal with the STL's (Sister Training Leaders) is to try and do an exchange every week for the rest of the transfer, mainly to give us an opportunity to work more, and it is really helping me! I always feel the best after an exchange because I know I worked the hardest I could that day. It just feel so good when I walk inside after a hard day and you just feel ready to die :D 
We have been teaching the Carly kids, we had two lessons with them these past two weeks. They are crazy, but I love it!  Our goal is to teach them the plan of salvation this upcoming week, and set them with a date for baptism! Their mom is excited for them, and hopefully this will bring her back to church as well!! She hasn't come in a long time. But her daughter went to girl’s camp last week!!
We had to drop our semi investigator, Helen. Missionaries have been going to see her for over a year, she is in her late 90's and is just lonely. She wants nothing more than to just die. So missionaries have gone as a service, to just visit with her and share a scripture. She has no interest in converting, but she is an amazing lady. But we felt prompted that we needed to drop her because she has not been progressing. BUT we found out she is interested in family history. So we passed her off to the family history lady in the ward....and when we tried to tell her we weren’t going to be able to stop by you could just see her heart break :( she said "so this is you giving me the ol' kiss good bye huh?" ...we felt so bad that we told her we would come see her once a month, and I think that will be perfect. Dropping people is hard, but if they aren’t progressing then we have to move forward so the lord can lead us to the people who are prepared. 
Sergio is slowly progressing. He feels the spirit in the lessons; he is just very very shy. He is comfortable with us but we want him to get to know some youth so he will feel comfortable at church too. But every time we bring a youth with us he gets really quiet, so we are praying hard to know how to help him. He was supposed to be getting baptized this Saturday but we feel that he is not ready yet. He is living with Scott and Dyan, and they aren’t doing so well. Dyan ended up back in the mental hospital for another night because she was having a break down. We try to go over but most the time she makes up an excuse for us not to come, my heart goes out to her. She knows she needs it, she just feels guilty. So we are just really prying for them. I feel like Alma on his mission to the Zoramites. He is praying so hard for their hearts to be softened and for them to know that the Lord loves them, and to give them strength to overcome. (Alma 31:32-35 read it!) 
I love these people so much!! I love this area! I love being a missionary! We have Scripture study every week with our recent Converts in the White Cliffs ward, and recently we have been focusing on church history because that’s something they said they want to learn about. It has been so fun!!
We went on exchanges again this week, and I stayed in the area with Sister Hirsch. She is AMAZING! she is one of the sweetest people I know, we had such an amazing time serving together for the day. (i forgot my camera, I will have to send pictures next week cuz we took some fun pictures.) We were looking for a part member family and we were up on a hill that looked over the town, right at sunset, and of it was gorgeous!! I love the world! the Lord creates beautiful things! After all he created us!
This weekend was the wedding of one of our investigators to one of our members. Sister Tooley (Abby) and Brock. We got to go help with the wedding. We helped her make tons of decorations throughout the week, (it was so nice to have a change to be crafty, it is my stress reliever) And then we went up and set up in the mountains. She had a country wedding! It was so fun! We were the servers; we did all the food and helped take everything down. None of his family are members so we had lots of missionary opportunities! It was a very spiritual ceremony to, It’s just an amazing thing to see people vow to love one another. 

Father’s day was great, we had some amazing talks, it made me miss my dad! But I know that this is where he wants me to be, both my dad here on earth and my Father in Heaven! I am so blessed to have such an amazing and supportive family!! I love you all!!!
Until next week!
Love,

Sister Loveless


June 15 2015

Hey, it sounds like you all have been having so much fun!!! I wish I could be there, but then again I wish instead you could be here and you could meet all the amazing people I am teaching and who I love! I wish you could meet Mark, he is our recent convert, he is just glowing! He is so happy all the time! He reminds me of a big version of Michael! He took us and Andy,  Anna and Braden all out to lunch today, I wish I had gotten a picture of us all so I could send it home to show you! I really love me mission, I have been trying really hard to focus only on the good things and not let anything or anyone effect my mood in a negative way. Sister Onorato has a countdown, she leaves 3 weeks from today, and she tells me every day. It's been really weird serving my while mission with companions who are just about to leave.  But I can see a huge difference between my first companion and my second, Sister Harrison didn’t want to go, she did everything she could NOT to focus on it and instead just serve, that’s the kind of missionary I want to be. It gets so hot here!! It has been in the 100*s and it’s only going to get hotter from here!! yikes!!
I love you all! 
I am looking forward to transfers and a change, it’s been a rough 2 transfers together, I will most likely be staying here in the area because she is leaving for home. Everyone is predicting that I will be training next transfer, I hear it is one of the hardest and most rewarding things you do as a missionary, so that would be a fun change. I feel like it’s so true, every companion and person and place we are put in, is to help us grow and make changes in our lives, so we can repent and become better. I think the harder you have to work as a companionship, the more you learn, because the Lord wants us to make hard changes and until we are put into the refiner’s fire we may not be willing to make those changes on our own. I pray that by the end of my mission the Lord will have formed me into something far more beautiful than I could have ever imagined before.
These past 2 weeks have been the most amazing ones of my mission, we found  6 new investigators, we taught over 30 lessons these two weeks, and over the past 2 days we had an amazing spiritual experience with Sergio, the young boy who is now set for a baptism date on June 27th!! next Saturday, we are prying he feels he is ready by then! We had a lesson on the restoration and he actually started crying, the spirit was so strong, even though we were sitting outside with a whole bunch of drunken people walking around us. He said that we always make him happy when we come over but he had never felt that amazing and happy as he did that night, He even came to church with us yesterday! We also had an amazing experience with a lady named Nancy; she was a referral we got from the referral system. She was baptized in November and went less active when she moved, then she moved here and someone sent in her information. We went over to her house and knocked on her door and she looked so surprised to see us, then she got a huge smile on her face! As we talked with her she said we could come back next week and get to know her more, but I felt like we needed to invite her to church, so I asked if she would come this Sunday and she said "they told me there was no Mormon church here!!! they lied! Of course I will go, how far is it? I don’t have a car" so apparently someone had told her that we didn’t have a building in Kingman. We arranged a ride and she sat with me at church for all 3 hours. It was a huge miracle, she said that the timing was so amazing, and she felt so welcomed and loved in our ward, everyone came up and said hi to her.. She stopped going to church in her last ward she moved to because she was a new convert and her first Sunday in the ward no one said anything to her, and she had no idea where to go. She is the sweetest in the world, she started smoking again since her baptism so we gotta work on that ;) but I am so excited! It’s been a week full of blessings!!
Enjoy the rainy days! I loved our little rainstorm we had, it made me feel like I had a little piece of home with me!! 
Love your favorite sister missionary!
Sister Loveless



This was the last letter in May sorry I'm out of order.

This has been a crazy week!! We had a mission wide conference this week in Las Vegas to prepare us to receive “I pads”! The conference was not really about I pads, but rather about being wise and being faithful to our calling. It was about missionaries who use I pads as a tool to further the Lords work, we are not an "I pad mission" or "I pad missionaries" that is not what defines us.  
Because the conference was in Vegas we got to drive up the night before and say with my old companion Sister Harrison and her companion. It was amazing the strength and spirit you could feel with 170+ missionaries standing together singing the "Spirit of God"!! After the conference we got to go to lunch with some members from Warm Springs, it’s amazing to me the relationships that you can form with people on your mission.
The drive home was not so fun, I got sick on Tuesday so as we were driving back through the pass I was in a lot of pain because of the sinus pressure. I got pretty sick so we stayed in for a few days so that I could get better, but I've got some medicine and I am on the road to recovery!!
In warm springs I was teaching Edvin and he got baptized this week!! I got to skype in to see it because I am so far away, so I couldn't go in person. But it was so fun to see him finally make that step. And this Saturday Mark is getting Baptized! I am so excited!!! He is ready!!

This week is also transfers! Sister Onorato and I will be staying together here in Kingman AZ for the next 6 weeks!! Then she goes home, and I will most likely get a new companion here in Kingman. So it looks like I will be here a while! My first Companion Sister Harrison Is going home tomorrow. It is crazy how fast time flies on your mission. Another month and I will have been on my mission for half a year! We took pictures as a district and we all went out to lunch in the little Mexican restaurant. The owner was so impressed with us that he wanted to take a picture of us to put on his Facebook page (Federico's Mexican Food) then when the Elders went back this week he agreed to take the lessons!!! It was such an amazing miracle that we got to witness as a zone! 
 The Kingman Zone

June 1st 2015

Hello all!!!                                                                                              June 1st 2015
This week was exciting!!! I have been really sick over the past 2 weeks, and after a trip to the urgent care to get me some medicine I am feeling a lot better! 
But the work, oh i love it!! It always makes me feel better! Mark got baptized this weekend!! I am SO HAPPY! His has been a long road coming. We we so worried it wouldn't work out because of how often he driving truck, he is usually only home for a few hours at a time. He had his heart set on getting baptized the 30th, so he said he would do whatever he could to be here. The only problem was we still had 2 lessons to teach him and we needed to get the Elders over so mark to get his Baptism interview done! It was such a miracle, he pulled in Friday morning and we were able to go over after district meeting with the Elders, go over the last two lessons and then get his interview done!!! 
His baptism was the next day, and it was amazing!! The spirit was so strong in that room! One of our amazing members, Brother Walker baptized him, and he is this really short guy....Mark is 6'5 and broad shouldered! Mark had to kneel down in the fount and then he still hit his head on the back of the wall as brother walker tried to perform the ordinance. But when I asked him about it after his reply was "oh really? I didn't feel a thing, I just fell good!"
He asked me to give the talk on The Gift of The Holy Ghost. That was such an amazing opportunity for me. mark is the first person i have taught that i have been able to be at the baptism for! The spirit was so strong and while i was up there talking i felt like it was just me and Mark and the spirit in the room. Daniel had written me a letter that i got that morning & he told me a story about two people. One (who was a member of the church) was eating fruit-snacks and talking about how amazing they tasted to the other person ( a non member) who watched as he told him about the amazing fruit-snacks, but the member never offered them any because they were afraid of offending them. And then Daniel told me "dont be afraid to share your fruit-snacks, you have the largest stash of fruit-snacks i have ever seen!". I shared the letter in my talk to Mark and related it to how we can share our spirit and they see it, and then i handed him 2 bags of fruits-nacks, and told him one was for him to keep because i was sharing it with him, and the other was for him to share with someone else. Andy (his best friend who is the reason we met mark) has come so far, he has been concurring his social anxiety a little at a time. He gave the closing prayer at the baptism! We were all so proud of him, it took ever ounce of courage he had! 
Sunday was his confirmation, and again the spirit was so strong! He had to leave right after sacrament meeting to go take his next truck load. But we had a lesson with Andy, Anna and Braden. Andy told me that Mark loved my talk, and he LOVED the fruit-snack story. Then he said "and can you guess who he shared them with?" I started guessing but didnt get it right. Andy said "Thomas". My heart melted! Thomas is their son who struggles with anxiety more than them all. He wont come out of his room when we come over. It meant a lot to all of us when we heard thats who Mark shared it with. 
That was the best part of my week! Well probably this transfer so far! We have lots of mission meeting coming up, it should be a good week! 
I love the gospel!! Go and share your Fruit-snacks!!
Love,
Sister Loveless

Monday, May 11, 2015

Happy Mothers Day

I GOT TO TALK TO MY FAMILY!!                                             5/11/2015
I love the gospel because I know that families can be together forever! It lifted my spirit a lot to be able to talk with my family, hear their voice and see their faces! And people ask me all the time if it’s hard to be on a mission because you don’t get to see your family, and it really is, that is the hardest part. I miss them a lot, but that is also a good reminder to me of why I am here, because I am here to teach others how they can be together forever. My family means the world to me, and I am looking forward to Christmas!! (today kinda feels like the day after Christmas....all that anticipation and then it happens and then the next day it’s really sad because you know you have to wait a whole year till next Christmas) But it was so good to see how good everyone is doing! 
This week was fun! We had exchanges and it was a really great opportunity to learn from someone else and see how the taught. We got to volunteer at a race for Hospice; we were the ones who would mark their time when they came across the finish! We got to do all kinds of service this week! We helped out at a Part Members House....who also happens to be a little bit crazy. That was an adventure! But, then right after we got to go and help the sweetest old lady in her garden. 
I also finally met Dan! He lives on the other side of the tracks, in the really sketchy part of town, but he is amazing! He is kind of like our protector, he told us that if anyone ever gives us trouble we need to come get him and he will teach them a lesson :} He lives on a property that the owner has a 400bl pig named Penelope. And in front of their house is a huge sign that says "WE DONT RENT PIGS" its super funny! But Dan is amazing, he wants to get baptized but he is having trouble quitting smoking because every time he tries he gets really sick and ends up in the hospital. He quit drinking and everything else cold turkey and he is so happy about it! Now we just need to get him to church!

Scott and Dyan who are recent converts who are amazing, they are just struggling right now, took in an 18 year old boy named Jr, because his mom went to jail. But he is amazing, he is trying to live a good life unlike is family so he wanted out. We had a lesson with all three of them and he said he would be up to taking the lessons with Scott and Dyan. So on exchanges we had an amazing lesson, it was one of the most spiritual ones I have taught. We talked about the plan of salvation and i ended in tears! Jr and Scott came to church on Sunday too!! I am so excited for them! He is what we call a dry Mormon. He is living it, He just hasn't been baptized yet :)
I love the Gospel! I love the power of prayer! It is amazing and it is what gets me through!! 
I pray for you all daily!

Love,

Sister Loveless

Monday, May 4, 2015

#13 &14 Make the most of it! 5/4/2015

Hello World!
I have learned many valuable lessons this week! Every day I learn something new and it just blows me away!
On Tuesday we had Zone Conference, President and Sister Snow came down with the Ap's and MSTL's (Mission Sister Training Leaders) and gave some amazing training's to the zone. I was spiritually fed and received a lot of personal revelation. That’s the most amazing thing about the Gift of the Holy Ghost, we have the ability to feel and recognize promptings and receive answers to questions. I know Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers. I finally got to meet everyone in my Zone too, we don’t often go to see all the missionaries when we are out of valley. But at the conference we talked a lot about the scriptures and how amazing they are. I have a personally testimony of receiving revelation through the scriptures. Heavenly Father will help us understand anything if we ask and then seek! 
Most of our week was spent in doors. My companion, Sister Onorato, got really sick for about 3 days so we stayed in. It was actually a really great experience for me because I was able to take some time to really pray and study and learn! I have learned so much! We also got to watch a few church movies, like the restoration, 17 Miracles and the John Tanner story. It really helped me put my life into perspective. The members of the church at that time gave up everything they had for the gospel. They laid down their very lives for their faith. They left their homes, families and all their belongings to walk hundreds of miles in conditions that we can’t even comprehend. And then I think about, if I was ever called to pass through a trial such as theirs and I wonder if I would be able to lay down my life for this gospel. And I would like to think I would. There was a talk given by Elder Bednar where he said "your Ancestors have proven their Faith time and time again. But what have you done lately?" those words have come back to my mind many times over this past week. I want to give my all, my everything. I may not be asked to die for my faith (or I might you never know) but I want to be able to live for my faith! Each day. Every day. I want to make the most of every day! This gospel is a pear of great price, and I don't care the cost. I will spend my life trying to live worthy of the price that my savior paid! 
After spending a few days inside we went back out and got back to work! We had a Zone Training Council on Saturday in Lake Havasu (where it was 100*) we learned together and talked about how we can further the work of salvation! We are trying to become more unified as a Zone...so now we call ourselves the "OHANA SQUAD" it makes me happy, I love it! We also made Zone T-shirts. We spray painted them. Our Zone goal this transfer is to focus on the "fundamentals" of the gospel and sharing that with everyone so that’s what our shirts were. It was super fun and super-hot outside while we made them!!
Sunday was an awesome day!!! We met with our investigators and recent convert (they all live together haha) Andy, Anna, their son Braden and Mark their roommate! Mark drives truck and we hardly ever get to see him so this was the first time that I have had a lesson with him. He is amazing; he is so ready for the gospel. We had a lesson about the word of wisdom with everyone, and when we asked him if he would live it he said "I already am. I want to take care of the body God gave me". The member who came with us said "Mark you just need to get baptized!" he replied "yea I know" so we set him with a date to work towards! The problem has been that he never knows when he will be in town, so he never wanted to agree to a day. But he knows he will be here the weekend of May 23rd!!!! So that’s the day!! I am so excited! We just have to teach him a few more lessons and he will be ready! Well actually he already is ready. Braden said that he will be baptized once His dad, Andy, gets the priesthood. Right now Andy is taking it slow because he has social anxiety and has just been feeling a little overwhelmed with everything. The whole family has social anxiety, but we are all working together to make it easy on them. Anna is still not sure about everything. I am praying that she will recognize the spirit and the blessing of the gospel for her family! They are such amazing people! 
I love my mission. I love teaching people about the gospel! I pray that we can all be converted and find the joy the gospel brings into our life and our family's life!
Speaking of family I get to talk to mine on Sunday!! MOTHERS DAY!! I CANT WAIT! 
Love,
Sister Loveless

Pictures are of Braden and T-shirt making


What a week !        Monday April 27th 2015
This has been quite the week! Every day has been an adventure! I am finally getting to know the area a little better and that is good! I have yet to get lost *knock on wood* but that is probably the only thing....i did lock the keys in the trunk today....in front of my whole district of Elders, they thought it was pretty funny...But then my poor companion and I had to sit outside forever waiting for a locksmith to come help us. So if your having a bad day just think, "hey at least i didn't lock my keys in the car in the middle of the dessert!" 
This week was full of fun stuff! We had exchanges, and Mini Missionaries and we spoke in church!
Exchanges was a great opportunity for me. Coming into this area has been an experience, we have a lot of things we want to do to improve our area as a companionship. And it was really nice to be able to have another sister come in for the day to help me really see these wards in a new light! Sister Smith taught me a lot about how to be bold and take charge. My mission has taught me a lot, and every missionary i meet teaches me something new, I love it! 
We found a few new investigators this week. One is named Carl. He is in his 70's but he is prepared! He had been going to another church and he doesn't agree with a lot of what they teach, and everything that he has had a concern about we have had an answer too!! I love it!
This weekend the youth in our stake over 16 had an opportunity to do something called a "mini mission". Friday night we met at the chapel with them and heard from a few converts and they shared their story. Then we were assigned our companions. Just like my first day out on the mission field, they announced their names and then said who their trainer would be! I had 3 girls, Vicky, Kara and Kate! We then broke off into rooms and showed them how to teach the first discussion, then they got to teach one of the investigators we brought with us! It was a mini MTC! The following morning on Saturday we met up at the Chapel and after having studies we headed out to go do missionary work! We had two rotations, so in the morning i had Vicky as my comp, and then we came back for lunch and i took out Kara and Kate for the second half of the day! When we returned we had dinner and then the mini missionaries got to share their testimonies of what happened over their mission! 
It was such an amazing experience! One of the girls i was with had told me at the beginning that she wanted to do this to see if she wanted to go on a mission, and by the end of Saturday she turned to me and said "I am going on a mission!!" seeing these young girls and showing them what it’s like to share the gospel really impacted me! We saw so many little miracles, it was stormy and raining but the girls never lost hope they wanted to find someone who was ready! We talked to every person we saw, they got to see what it was like to be rejected, to have a door slammed in their face and to see someone so thankful for missionaries and kind and loving! A mission is full of all sorts of emotions, and was excited to let the girls experience that! I wish I had time to go into detail about everything! Its been a great week! We have met a few insane people who have made for some great memories and laughter! 
Love,
Sister Loveless

Pictures 
-me and my comp Sister Onorato  @Temple 
-Me & Sister Smith on exchanges
-Me and my mini missionaries