Missionary Work is FUN!

Hello there!

This week was full of crazy awesome miracles!! One of our investigators K (male) came to church and loved it! Me and Smith tried our best to entertain his crazy 3 year old girl so he could feel the spirit and listen to the talks. It was quite the adventure. Respect for moms in sacrament meetings all over the world. We also set him with a baptismal date for Oct 8, so that's great!

Our other super solid lovely amazing fantastic investigator K (female) loves the gospel! She said she reads the Book of  Mormon, and then puts it down to go onto LDS.org and look up more about the church! She has a real desire to know if it's true, and if she should join. I trust in the promise of the Lord that as people have a sincere desire, the spirit will witness to them the truth and they will desire to become apart of the fold. So excited for her and the spirit she's feeling! We talked about temples last week, and she was so excited! She also mentioned how she noticed how much we loved the temple just by how we taught it. She's really progressing!

We had a delicious dinner. It was our cheat day. We try to eat healthy, but when we can have Cook Out, you can't say no. Cook Out has great burgers, fries, shakes, and best of all hush puppies. Those are basically like a mini corndog, minus the hot dog. So it's all just deep fried bread. Sooooo good.

The M family had their interviews on Friday, and all 3 (!)  were cleared for their baptism this coming Sunday!!!!!!!!! This has been a long process. 5 years they have been taught. We just happen to be the missionaries here at the right time to teach them. We are so excited for that family though, it's going to be an amazing experience. I'll tell you all about it next week!

We helped set up for the stake singles dance Saturday night at our chapel. It was a western theme, it was fabulous! Lots of yummy treats, great set up, and Brother F came in with his big set up and was the DJ for the night. We couldn't stay for the dance obviously, but we were happy to help. Yehaw!!

There was an 8 year old baptism Sunday. It was so sweet, and she came back in in her cute little white dress. This Saturday is another 8 year old baptism, we are just dunking them all!

Thought for the week: Missionary work is fun! Without laughter, how could anything be enjoyed? While we keep the dignity of our calling, laughter and fun are all part of the work! It is fun to talk to strangers and introduce them to the gospel! It is fun to meet other members of the church on the opposite side of the country. It is fun When people wave at us and know who we are. It is fun to stand as a witness of Jesus Christ. So go, have fun this week being an example of the believers! The M girls aren't even members of the church, but they say they stand up for the churches beliefs, because they are their beliefs. They are so excited to be baptized so they can represent Christ and be his witness in this dark world.

Thanks for all your love and prayers, we can feel them each day! You are all fabulous, and The Lord is so mindful of you!
Have a blessed week, full of fun!
Love, Sista Poulsen

Tobacco fields are everywhere

Postcard - Old Henry Lighthouse

Howdy! I found this old thing and it took me back! 3 months ago I was totes there! Beatiful lookout. The ocean was amazing! 3 months later, I'm here in ORcky Mount and I get to see beautiful fields & gorgeous country houses. Some roads we go down remind me a Wellsville a little Bit *heart* God is just so good to give us this wonderful planet! 1 Nephi 17:36 "Behold, the Lord hath created the earth that it should be inhabited, and the He hath created His children that they should possess it."
Love Y'all So Much!
Have a very blessed day!
*Heart*/ Sista Poulsen

* The Old Lighthouse to the right dates back to 1792.  <--- the 1st on the East Coast!

Stake Conference with Elder Holland

Hello everyone! How are y'all doing this fine day?

This week went by pretty zippy! We moved out one of the families in our ward on Tuesday. It is sad to see them go :( It was quite the all day event! Us, the elders, and a few others were there to help load up the truck! Half way through the day, we realized that we were running out of room, so we stopped and re-arranged. And, by the grace of God, all fit!! We sent the P family on their way to Morrehead City! They will be missed.

We started teaching M (a daughter in the M Family) and she is being prepared to be baptized on the 4th of September! She will have her interview this week and be well on her way! Her sister will be taking the lessons as well!!!!!!! They have been waiting FOREVER for the opportunity to enter into the waters of baptism! This is a dream come true to them, and I'm humbled and grateful that I get to be a part of it!

We talked to our investigator, K, about her Book of Mormon reading and prayers and if she had noticed a difference in her life. She agreed that she has felt closer to God, and she is willing to come to church in a few weeks! So exciting! It just showed me the power of the Book of Mormon in conversion!

Transfer calls... drum roll please... By no real surprise Smith and I are staying, as well as Elder Gardner and his trainee Elder Brimhall! But it was a shock to us to hear that Elder Hyman is leaving us and going up to Smithfield, VA! We were not expecting that!  He shall be missed, but that's the mission life! I'll see him on the plane home, so, it's not goodbye!

Now for the big event, Stake Conference with Elder Jeffery R. Holland presiding.  It was amazing! For the Saturday session, we sat on the side pews, and he walked in right next to us! My first thought was "Wow, he's pretty short!" Maybe it just seemed like that with his massive elephant sized security guards behind him. But he was so sweet! We were all standing and after he got up onto the stage, he turned around, blew us all a kiss and told us to sit down :) All of conference was wonderful! Hearing from the stake presidency for the last time was very bitter sweet for many. But learning of the newly called presidency was a thrill, and one of the members of our ward was called to be a counselor! President Boney he shall now be called :) President and Sister Weed were in attendance, and had a few minutes to speak. They talked about how they just love the missionaries, and that we have the full picture; the gospel of Jesus Christ! Then the temple president in Raleigh and his wife spoke a little as well. And what a blessing the temple and the covenants we make there are to them. Very sweet :) Then Elder Cordon spoke, the newly called area 70 over this area. He had a sweet accent, and was a cute little man! He talked about the Sabbath day and obedience. "To be clean we first have to be obedient." So that was fab! Then Elder Holland got to speak to us. Saturday night, he stood up and told us he was prompted by the spirit to change his whole talk and talk about how God loves broken things. It was powerful, and he would get all soft spoken, and then pound the pulpit to get the point across, it was great! Some good quotes. "Life is tough? Well yeah, welcome to the Telestial kingdom." "We want it too cheaply. We have to be willing to walk where Christ walked, feel what He felt, shed what he shed in order to become as He is." "DO NOT EVER say that God does not love you! NEVER!" Then on Sunday he talked about reorganization, and how no other organization could just simply switch its leadership on a dime like this one. This is divine work!

Thought for the week: It comes from Elder Holland. He left a blessing upon everyone in the Goldsboro Stake. But he also said he would leave this blessing on anyone we (the people of the Goldsboro Stake) care about, worry about, or want a blessing for. So that qualifies you all! So here is the blessing that Elder Holland had given you. Pretend that he has just laid his hands of you head, an apostle of the Lord, and blessed you with these things:
For the men, He blessed you to seek and find the power of godliness in the flesh by understanding the Holiness of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood. He gives you the power, privilege and promise of the priesthood to bless the lives of all those around you.
For the women, He blesses you that as you honor your covenants that you will be able to strengthen those you care for. And that God will lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.

So there you have it. An amazing blessing and promise from an apostle of God. He is a special witness of the Savior, and his witness Saturday and Sunday was clear and strong. That He lives, and loves us unconditionally.

Love y'all! Hope you have a wonderful week, and keep this promise in mind!
Peace and blessings
Sista Poulsen

Lisa Says: notice the ties of the elders in the pics below.  Sista P and her companion made the boys these ties out of cast off fabric and things that have been left behind in their apartment.  funny.

God sees our little efforts

Hello from NC!
This week was full of some good stuff!
We had a lesson with some investigators at waffle house. Love that place! It's this adorable little diner that I love a lot. But the lesson went pretty well! They want some time to think about it, but we are seeing them again at another restaurant this week, talking about the BofM, what a great lesson!
Man we did some service this week, which we love! Sister R, then the Ps. They are moving this Tuesday. But we went and helped for a while to pack things up and get things all ready. It's gonna be sad to see them go!
This month our Zone Leaders have asked that we focus a lot on the BofM, especially to respond to objections. It's been great! One investigator K has been reading faithfully, J as well. They have both noticed the stories and principles taught. And if they have questions, they are answered as they read, so cool!
We met this man named D, he had this super long white beard and mullet. Super rad :) We talked to him about the restoration and he thought that was pretty neato!
There are these amazing members in our ward! The Fs! They have both been through so much, but they are the most humble, God loving people you will ever meet! She just kept saying "Girl, He loves me and blesses us sooo much!" It really made me think how my problems aren't that big and even when I do have problems, I should be grateful for those experiences and see Gods loving hand in those times. Sister F said she would go through everything she went through again just to feel the love and peace God had given her!
Things in the work though... lots of people set up appointments and just aren't there when we go. Whether they are ignoring us or just forget, it's still frustrating. We wasted 6 miles the other day just to show up at an empty door. Tracting was ineffective as well. So there are ups and downs, but God sees all our little efforts!
Thought for the Week: Helaman 8:15 "And as many as should look upon that serpent should live, even so as many as should look upon the Son of God with faith, having a contrite spirit, might life, even unto that life which is eternal." We have been sharing the story of Peter walking on the water to go to Jesus. We ask them how they can keep their eyes on the Savior and not look at the raging waters around us. They usually say the primary answers; prayer, scripture study, church attendance. But those are exactly right. As we are consistent at those things, we can be prepared when we may falter and begin to sink. But as we cry out in mighty prayer as peter did, Christ is there. As we read our scriptures, we are lifted out of the water. And as we attend church, we can be helped by those around us and help others who may be drowning. So though for the week is go back to the basics. They are our best defense again trials and temptations of the devil.
Sorry for the sorta short letter, hopefully something crazy awesome will happen this week! We have a few lessons set up with some possibly golden investigators, so we'll see how that goes! Maybe we will get a transfer call :O How crazy that calls are this week?!? We most likely won't get a call so I can finish training my dear Sis Smith, but who knows. Only God... and President Weed.
Love y'all lots and lots, have a fantastic week! Have some fun before school is back in session!
Love, Sista Poulsen

p.s Oh and did I mention I'm hitting 6 months this week??? Yeah... how did that happen?!?!? :D

Wish Katie and Greg happy birthday for me would ya?? Thanks :)

We worked out real hard with Sister H this morning. She cranked the primary songs and we did some cool workouts with her. We are trying to eat healthier too, but buying healthy is expensive! We are doing pretty well though, a few things each week.

p-day bananagrams (and an iron?)

The Haircut!!

Question: The haircut?!?!?
Answer: Here it is :) I'm loving my new do!  I put some stuff in it that makes it curly. It is usually this ugly wave unless I straighten the crap out of it which isn't good. So yeah :)
It was supes weird [the first time I washed it]! I put lots of conditioner on my hands, and I went to put it on and went "oh yeah" It takes like 30 sec to brush, so it's great! Not too much difference in humidity. I still sweat and then my little hairs plaster to my neck to that’s not too great. But I still like it a lot :)
It looks pretty different straight.  It's not weighted down anymore! He cut it off and I literally felt the weight come off, it was great!

ALOHA!!

It was a longgggg slowwww week!
Lots of knocking. We gave some book of mormons out, but a lot of people say "I have my bible." or "I know Jesus on a personal level." I just wanna say "Do you want to know Him even more? Here's more of Gods word, how cool!!!" Silly people.

Crazy cool/scary thing happened too! So... Here it goes. We were driving to an appointment. I made a wrong turn (like I do a lot) And had to flip around in this round about thing. As I was turning, we saw this lady next to her car. She looked like some FBI agent cuz she was packing. We waved and moved on. We got to our appointment and parked. Just then I noticed that she had followed us! She was on the phone, and drove by our car slowly, and parked close enough to see us, but not too close. She wasn't being very sneaky. We were a little freaked, but we just decided to walk. We walked down the street and talked to some lady outside. After we said goodbye to her and walked to our appointments house, we notice a cop car pull up next to the FBI chick. Okay, something is going down!! We talk to the guy we had the appointment with, he said he was no longer interested. So we started walking back when we noticed the cop car was now behind us, slowly coming closer to us! We watched them drive by, we smiled and waved like missionaries do. They went past us... then sharply turned in front of us and parked. DUDE! We stopped and stood awkwardly for 3.7 second while they got out of the car. One came up to us and said "Hey ladies how are ya?" We lied and said we were good when we were really confused and freaking out! He asked for out ID, and said "I'll explain what's going on in a sec." Okay... more suspense! Finally he says "So what do you ladies do?" We explained how we do service for people in this area and share a message about Jesus Christ. He replies "Oh okay, we just like to check people out that walk around and sell stuff and do stuff like you guys. We get phone calls from people asking us to check it out. So now we can just tell them we have talked to Y'all and there's nothing to worry about." PHEW! That was a relief. I was prepared to get cuffed! But it was actually pretty cool too. Sweet story :)

And yes the rumors are true... I cut off 13 inches of my hair!!! It's great! I really enjoy it a lot, I use way less shampoo. It takes seconds to comb out. It blows in the wind nicely. But is curly weird, and I look like I'm doing some throw back from the 50's. But I'm learning to work with it.

We saw something super blessed coming back from zone meeting Friday. It was a man on his motorcycle... with his dog in the back wearing goggles. It was so funny! He had like this little trailer thing for the dog to sit in and stuff. It was fab.

Other than that, just teaching people the gospel and trying (emphasize on trying) to talk to everyone! There are good days and bad days, but we are pushing through, and God sees our efforts!!

Thought for the week: "Be the Christian God wants you to be." Someone shared this in sacrament meeting yesterday. She is a Less active member we are working with. She came to church she said because God told her to go! He told her that He blesses you each day with safety on the roads. Each day to get up and go to work. All He asks is 3 hours on Sunday. He really asks very little of us. And He has promised us to many things in return! So let's just decide to follow Him, and receive so many good things :)

Hope you have an exciting week! School is fast approaching, so don't let summer go to waste!!
Love you all lots, have a blessed week!
Sista Poulsen

Some fun pics from our adventurous week :)

• Us on This random couch in front of our investigators house.
• The elders pranked us :P
• Someone you might recognize. (Lisa says: This is a spanish speaking sister serving in North Logan right now!  She is from Sister Poulsen's current stake - They switched places!!)
• Our Zone Conference 
• And a sweet house in NC.

• 
  

Secret Agent Girls...in Skirts

Hello Hello folks!
What a wild week! We had our mini missionary all this week, it was a blast! Her name was Sister Taylor. She had such a big heart for all the people, and had a great testimony that helped lots of people we taught! It was interesting to teach in a trio though. It took a little to get used to, but we figured it out!
Guess just how many new investigators we got? 4!! Wow, what a great thing! A few were referrals from a member. One was a tracting find. And the other was a head quarter referrals brother! We taught them all the same lesson, but they all needed different things, that's what I love about the gospel, is that it is to unique to everyone!
As you may have seen in our recent pics, we shelled butter beans (aka lima beans) for Sister Armstrong! She really acted like she didn't need our help, but yesterday expressed her sincere thankfulness for us helping her out. They were quite fun to shell though! And then we went and got some taco pizza afterwards, yum!
We helped out at mutual Wednesday for Girls Camp! Ahhhh I was so jealous! I love Girls Camp :) We helped them make all these creative props and to practice their skit. I actually gave Sister H the idea for it.  So, she kept thanking us so much! We were just happy to help :) Service is soooo good!
My GPS is just so inspired. This is how we came across one of our new investigators. I had planned out a route in the GPS to go see a number of people before we went to our dinner appointment. I thought the GPS was taking us to a potential in the area, but 10 minutes later when I realized we were far away from where we really needed to be. I just decided to roll with it. We parked near our dinner appointment and we decided to knock some doors. The very first door we knocked was the app. neighbor. She graciously let us in and we taught her the restoration! Her name is K, and she's a state trooper. Super cool lady! She was open to our message and is excited for us to come back! But the best part is when she told us she was surprised we actually caught her. She's usually out on call or something. Thank you GPS!!
We have also been heart attacking lots of members and such lately, super fun! It is even funnier when there are people outside watching us when we do it. We look like secret agent girls… in skirts... Pretty Blessed :)
One funny story from the week: So, we are having a full out battle now with the elders. Whenever we see their car, we flip their windshield wipers up and push their mirrors in. But yesterday, they upped the game. We came back to our car from tracting... and noticed our wipers were completely gone?!?! Holy Cow... and it was totally about to start raining. We just decided to keep driving, and if it started raining to call them and make them come rescue us. It did not end up raining, but later in the evening, we got this text "Hey, you guys left your windshield wipers in the back of our car..." All we could say was "Just be glad it didn't rain..." It was pretty funny.
Oh, and I almost stepped on a snake... sorta. We were walking back up to our apt, and I was about to walk up the step when I looked down and noticed a snake on the step... I scrambled down the stairs screaming "SNAKE!!" Sister Taylor threw her bag at it... and when it didn't move, I knew instantly it was fake. And I also instantly knew it was those darn elders. Later they told us a member told them to scare us with it. But boy oh boy are they gonna get it. If you have any good prank ideas, please, send them with way.
Thought for the week: "Christ like love is the most needed thing we need on this earth." Truly. When we visit members, I feel such great love for them, and feel good in their home! That's what this gospel brings: Charity, the pure love of Christ. That is our message. That is our purpose. To help change this hateful world into a loving one.
Well, God bless everyone! So many people say that down here, and I just love it! Truly, I hope and pray for God to bless you ALL this week!
Love ya!
Love, Sista Poulsen

Lisa says:
AND from the ?s email this little tidbit:
" I am cutting my hair today... super nervous! I am gonna leave it an inch or 2 below my shoulder... but I'm still way scared!" Sister Poulsen has had long hair for as long as she can remember.  This is a really big step!!  I can't wait to see it and hear how much easier it is to do and how much cooler it feels in the heat.