8/24
I got the package with the supplements you sent me, thanks for that! I haven't tried using them yet because my anxiety has actually been a lot better this last week. It's weird to me that it went from something that was a significant problem for about 3 weeks to something that is only a slight problem some of the time. I'm still wary about it popping right back up though because I don't know what caused it or what made it mostly go away. That being said, I don't know if it would be worth it at this point to skype with that guy or not. I still have some anxiety symptoms going on, especially muscle tension in my back and shoulders. But it is far less than it had been and back to almost normal, meaning just occasional anxiety that is fairly moderate. So that is good haha but it still leaves me confused about what was going on!
IMPORTANT: The mission nurse also asked me to ask you to look into what PEHP requires for out of state medical and dental insurance coverage. She tried to look into it, but it looks like there might be a few hoops to jump through. I need to go to the dentist sometime in the near future, and it is also important for the medical side of things to be cleared up in case I need to go to a doctor out here for whatever random reason. Please look into it and you can email me about it, but it would probably be most effective if you called her once you get it figured out. Her number is 732-682-8304
I got the birthday packages you sent with the Rolstons including my cleats, so thank you!
How was sister Andrus' homecoming? Abby said she went and it was really good, but I would love to hear about it from you too. Did you get a chance to meet her and talk to her at all?
Love you!
Sometimes when I take a step back and look at just how weird so many aspects of missionary life are it blows my mind! We get put with some random person that we usually don't even know for at least 6 weeks and are not allowed to be out of each other's sight or hearing the whole time! And we get told we are moving to another city (again not of our choosing) to live there for anywhere between 6 weeks and like 7 1/2 months! When we try to explain transfers to people they just stare at us like we are crazy! And explaining it does make it sound kind of crazy...but hey that's what we signed up for!
For me it wasn't too crazy this week, S. Pexton went home and I got a new companion just like usual, but the weird part this time is that my new companion already served in this area for 6 months, 6 months ago! Her name is Sister Lauren Godfrey and she is awesome! I am excited for this transfer, we are going to do great things, I can feel it in my bones! It is nice having someone who already basically knows the area right from the get-go because we can just hit the ground running! It has been a good week, we are working on trying to find new investigators, but as always doing lot of good work with less active members and recent converts. It has been cool teaching these people with S. Godfrey because she taught them months ago and now she gets to come back and see the progress they have made.
As a fun little welcome back for s. Godfrey we caught yet another mouse her first morning back! When she was here before they had even more of a mice problem and that was her biggest thing she had been happy to leave!
I love you all!
Sister McConkie
I got the package with the supplements you sent me, thanks for that! I haven't tried using them yet because my anxiety has actually been a lot better this last week. It's weird to me that it went from something that was a significant problem for about 3 weeks to something that is only a slight problem some of the time. I'm still wary about it popping right back up though because I don't know what caused it or what made it mostly go away. That being said, I don't know if it would be worth it at this point to skype with that guy or not. I still have some anxiety symptoms going on, especially muscle tension in my back and shoulders. But it is far less than it had been and back to almost normal, meaning just occasional anxiety that is fairly moderate. So that is good haha but it still leaves me confused about what was going on!
IMPORTANT: The mission nurse also asked me to ask you to look into what PEHP requires for out of state medical and dental insurance coverage. She tried to look into it, but it looks like there might be a few hoops to jump through. I need to go to the dentist sometime in the near future, and it is also important for the medical side of things to be cleared up in case I need to go to a doctor out here for whatever random reason. Please look into it and you can email me about it, but it would probably be most effective if you called her once you get it figured out. Her number is 732-682-8304
I got the birthday packages you sent with the Rolstons including my cleats, so thank you!
How was sister Andrus' homecoming? Abby said she went and it was really good, but I would love to hear about it from you too. Did you get a chance to meet her and talk to her at all?
Love you!
Sometimes when I take a step back and look at just how weird so many aspects of missionary life are it blows my mind! We get put with some random person that we usually don't even know for at least 6 weeks and are not allowed to be out of each other's sight or hearing the whole time! And we get told we are moving to another city (again not of our choosing) to live there for anywhere between 6 weeks and like 7 1/2 months! When we try to explain transfers to people they just stare at us like we are crazy! And explaining it does make it sound kind of crazy...but hey that's what we signed up for!
For me it wasn't too crazy this week, S. Pexton went home and I got a new companion just like usual, but the weird part this time is that my new companion already served in this area for 6 months, 6 months ago! Her name is Sister Lauren Godfrey and she is awesome! I am excited for this transfer, we are going to do great things, I can feel it in my bones! It is nice having someone who already basically knows the area right from the get-go because we can just hit the ground running! It has been a good week, we are working on trying to find new investigators, but as always doing lot of good work with less active members and recent converts. It has been cool teaching these people with S. Godfrey because she taught them months ago and now she gets to come back and see the progress they have made.
As a fun little welcome back for s. Godfrey we caught yet another mouse her first morning back! When she was here before they had even more of a mice problem and that was her biggest thing she had been happy to leave!
I love you all!
Sister McConkie
8/31
Somehow I always seem to run out of time when I am trying to write my main weekly email! Sorry! You would think I would learn to do it first...guess I'm a slow learner!
This week we continued to do a lot of work with less active members and recent converts. That seems to be most of the work we do every week, but we are slowly making progress on finding new people to teach! I am especially excited about a mother and son that we contacted last Wednesday. She had just gotten off work and was very stressed and not wanting to talk, but her son was more than willing to chat with us and thanks to him she started to open up. She had recently been thinking that she needed to start going back to her church because she knew that having God back in her life would help with some of the stress she has been under. She said it seemed like a sign when we stopped and talked to her even though she admitted she seemed very unapproachable. Hopefully we can help her see that while going to her church would be a good thing, receiving the fullness of the restored gospel is the thing that will be the greatest blessing in her life as well as her son's. Her son was very excited about us giving them a Book of Mormon. He loves to read, and he is very enthusiastic about his faith in God!
As we plan lessons for all the different people we teach it is interesting to me to see how different everyone's circumstances are, and yet the gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer in every case. The way we teach people and the specific doctrines we focus on might be slightly different depending on the person, but the overall message is the same. No matter if your trials are financial, or health related, or problems with family, or making important decisions, or all of the above; as we live the gospel and use the atonement of Jesus Christ our lives improve. And we find greater peace and true joy. Basic things like daily scripture study, prayer, and partaking of the sacrament each week, seem like too simple of answers for complex problems. I have felt that way many times. But they work. And the reason they work is that as we make them a part of our lives we grow closer to our Savior. That is where the real power lies. As we diligently cultivate our relationship with Him, our lives improve and more importantly our perspective changes.
Love yous!
Sister McConkie
P.S. Shout out to JoLynne! Happy Birthday birthday buddy!
Me and S. Godfrey at Ellis Island
Somehow I always seem to run out of time when I am trying to write my main weekly email! Sorry! You would think I would learn to do it first...guess I'm a slow learner!
This week we continued to do a lot of work with less active members and recent converts. That seems to be most of the work we do every week, but we are slowly making progress on finding new people to teach! I am especially excited about a mother and son that we contacted last Wednesday. She had just gotten off work and was very stressed and not wanting to talk, but her son was more than willing to chat with us and thanks to him she started to open up. She had recently been thinking that she needed to start going back to her church because she knew that having God back in her life would help with some of the stress she has been under. She said it seemed like a sign when we stopped and talked to her even though she admitted she seemed very unapproachable. Hopefully we can help her see that while going to her church would be a good thing, receiving the fullness of the restored gospel is the thing that will be the greatest blessing in her life as well as her son's. Her son was very excited about us giving them a Book of Mormon. He loves to read, and he is very enthusiastic about his faith in God!
As we plan lessons for all the different people we teach it is interesting to me to see how different everyone's circumstances are, and yet the gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer in every case. The way we teach people and the specific doctrines we focus on might be slightly different depending on the person, but the overall message is the same. No matter if your trials are financial, or health related, or problems with family, or making important decisions, or all of the above; as we live the gospel and use the atonement of Jesus Christ our lives improve. And we find greater peace and true joy. Basic things like daily scripture study, prayer, and partaking of the sacrament each week, seem like too simple of answers for complex problems. I have felt that way many times. But they work. And the reason they work is that as we make them a part of our lives we grow closer to our Savior. That is where the real power lies. As we diligently cultivate our relationship with Him, our lives improve and more importantly our perspective changes.
Love yous!
Sister McConkie
P.S. Shout out to JoLynne! Happy Birthday birthday buddy!
Me and S. Godfrey at Ellis Island
9/7
This week in our zone meeting we were given a challenge/expectation of
contacting at least 10 people a day, and by taking that challenge and
making an effort to make as many of those lessons as possible, we went
from 12 lessons last week (which we felt good about because they were
scheduled lessons that went well) to 20 lessons this week! The
previous highest I had ever gotten was 13 a couple times. I didn't
even believe that 20 lessons was actually possible for me to achieve!
The vast majority of those lessons were street and doorstep lessons.
Contacting people and getting them to talk to us long enough to share
a message and say a prayer has always been by far the scariest and
most challenging part of my mission This week/having this transfer
with s Godfrey seems to be just the game changing kick start that I
have been praying for for months! I know that true change requires
consistency over an extended period of time, and I certainly have not
totally conquered my fears, but this week has really changed my view
of what is really possible for me, not just something somehow possible
for other missionaries.
Another highlight of the week was a woman who goes by Princess singing
Amazing Grace as a part of her testimony in sacrament meeting,
complete with a harmonica! I will try to attach a clip of it that I
secretly recorded on my iPad 😋
My birthday was great! Monday a ward member bought me a cake and
brought it to the ward Family Home Evening where I pretended to blow
out candles because it was too windy to get them to light! On my
actual birthday we didn't really have any time to do anything, we have
a zone meeting and then went on exchange with our Sister Training
Leaders. So basically I got to spend the day walking a bajillion
blocks in the heat and trying to be somewhat helpful with contacting
and teaching Spanish people! I actually did have a really really cool
experience though. We were teaching a Honduran who speaks about as
much English as I do Spanish but somehow we were able to have a
conversation about the U.S. Women's soccer team complete with talking
about Abby wambach and then during the lesson I was able to understand
about 75% of what was being discussed! That is the gift of
interpretation of tongues for sure because normally I would say I
understand maybe 30%
Life is good and I love you all!
Sister McConkie
This week in our zone meeting we were given a challenge/expectation of
contacting at least 10 people a day, and by taking that challenge and
making an effort to make as many of those lessons as possible, we went
from 12 lessons last week (which we felt good about because they were
scheduled lessons that went well) to 20 lessons this week! The
previous highest I had ever gotten was 13 a couple times. I didn't
even believe that 20 lessons was actually possible for me to achieve!
The vast majority of those lessons were street and doorstep lessons.
Contacting people and getting them to talk to us long enough to share
a message and say a prayer has always been by far the scariest and
most challenging part of my mission This week/having this transfer
with s Godfrey seems to be just the game changing kick start that I
have been praying for for months! I know that true change requires
consistency over an extended period of time, and I certainly have not
totally conquered my fears, but this week has really changed my view
of what is really possible for me, not just something somehow possible
for other missionaries.
Another highlight of the week was a woman who goes by Princess singing
Amazing Grace as a part of her testimony in sacrament meeting,
complete with a harmonica! I will try to attach a clip of it that I
secretly recorded on my iPad 😋
My birthday was great! Monday a ward member bought me a cake and
brought it to the ward Family Home Evening where I pretended to blow
out candles because it was too windy to get them to light! On my
actual birthday we didn't really have any time to do anything, we have
a zone meeting and then went on exchange with our Sister Training
Leaders. So basically I got to spend the day walking a bajillion
blocks in the heat and trying to be somewhat helpful with contacting
and teaching Spanish people! I actually did have a really really cool
experience though. We were teaching a Honduran who speaks about as
much English as I do Spanish but somehow we were able to have a
conversation about the U.S. Women's soccer team complete with talking
about Abby wambach and then during the lesson I was able to understand
about 75% of what was being discussed! That is the gift of
interpretation of tongues for sure because normally I would say I
understand maybe 30%
Life is good and I love you all!
Sister McConkie