Blessed are they who suffer October 17 2016

deer my friends

The rollercoaster that is missionary life is always indescribable, but I will do my best. 

This week many a miracle has happened, as usual. we got 6 referrals. and 4 were people who requested a Bible. The other two were from our dear ward members. One was from a less active member who we have been trying to meet with but scheduling keeps not working out. She was talking with us in the church kitchen about her neighbor and it started out as a referral and then she told us she didn't feel equipped to help her neighbor because she wasn't sure of her own testimony at times. tears were shed and she told us that she would like to start meeting with us again. so double miracle whammy. The second referral we got is from an all-star missionary member named sister Duede who is who I aspire to be. she is always calling us up and telling us about how she gave a card to someone at a park or invited someone to church or how her grandma is taking discussions (??!?!?) she is so great. She invited a friend from her home school support group to church. This lady has been having a really hard time in her life and sister Duede recognized that she could use the gospel. So she invited her to church and talked about it and got her friend really excited. And Sister Duede got really excited as well, she is always doing missionary work but often doesn't see any of the results from her efforts. anyways, she couldn't come to church that week, but was planning on coming the next week and planning to meet the missionaries at sister Duedes home and the whole shabang. Sister Duede gets a text the day before the appointment is set up and her friend tells her that she is so excited to meet us tomorrow! and then..

an hour before our appointment Sister Duede's friend comes into her house. and takes her kids (side note sister Duede was babysitting her kids while her friend was looking for a job) and tells her all these bad things about how Sister Duede is a bad person and Mormons are terrible and she couldn't believe she let her kids over to her house and all of this stuff. So, she obviously read or heard some things that were untrue about mormons.. We get to sister Duedes house, she explains what just happened while we are sitting with her on her porch. and then she is crying. and she asks us why? Why does this keep happening? Why? When I do everything right (which she did) why doesn't it go well? What is the point? Why do I even keep trying if nobody listens? and the same thing keeps happening over and over? Why. Why should I keep doing missionary work? 

And I saw myself 8 months ago. When all of our investigators dropped us in one day. When I taught a grand total of 3 lessons my first transfer. When we taught Bunch, who was and is GOLDEN, and he still couldn't get baptized. When nobody would listen to us and all we ever did was tract. and we talked to 50 people IN ONE DAY. and none of them were interested. Why? What is the point.

And I remembered a couple of scriptures that Sister Smith shared with me after a particularly hard week

matthew 5 

10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

 11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

 12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

Alma 56 

16 Yea, and they were depressed in body as well as in spirit, for they had fought valiantly by day and toiled by night to maintain their cities; and thus they had suffered great afflictions of every kind.

 17 And now they were determined to conquer in this place or die; therefore you may well suppose that this little force which I brought with me, yea, those sons of mine, gave them great hopes and much joy.

and all I could think to tell her is that we are blessed when we suffer. When strangers reject us or our friends reject us or our family rejects us. We are blessed. And we are in good company. because "and so persecuted they the prophets which were before you" BLESSED ARE THEY WHO SUFFER FOR MY SAKE.

I'm not really sure if that helped her at all. or even comforted her really.. because all I said was you are blessed because of this suffering. But 8 months ago in that moment it really helped me. It got me PUMPED. I was excited and ready to suffer for Jesus Christ's sake and for God's sake and for the Gospel's sake

So do you stop doing missionary work? NO

WHY???????????

Alma 26 

 27 Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success.

...

35 Now have we not reason to rejoice? Yea, I say unto you, there never were men that had so great reason to rejoice as we, since the world began;

NEVER. NO JOY IS GREAT AS THE JOY OF GIVING SOMEONE THE BLESSING OF THE GOSPEL. THAT IS WHY YOU KEEP DOING MISSIONARY WORK. BC YEAH SOMEONE MIGHT SAY NO. BUT THEY MIGHT SAY YES.

alright..

rant over.

for now. 

I have been thinking a lot about Satan. Which is weird to say. But I'll explain. Sister Corbett and I have been talking and studying a lot about faith. And the miracles it brings. and we were teaching a lesson about faith to a couple in our ward and we discussed specifically when Jesus is walking on water and Peter joins with him but then he starts sinking when he sees the storms around him. and then Sister McDonald related it to current times and said

"and you look around, and see all the obstacles and things, and you start to get overwhelmed and think to yourself "oh, I can't do this, what was I thinking?" and thats when you fall, because of course you cant do this! No one can! But through Jesus Christ, you can!" and it kind of whacked me upside the head and gave me a reality check. I have been feeling overwhelmed lately, and very inadequate. I was and am, already very aware of my inadequacies, but I had forgotten that they don't matter. It isn't me who has to do all of this work. It is God who does it through me. I just have to be willing and open, and allow Him to work through me. He doesn't ask us to do it all, He asks us to let Him do it for us. And we do that by having faith and relying on Him instead of ourselves. And Satan tries to get us to forget that. And we start to get prideful and think that we are supposed to rely on ourselves rather than God and then we run around being really ineffective and are confused about why. 

Missionary work is great everyone. and it is worth it. The ups are worth the downs.

On Sunday four new people came to church. One of them requested a Bible earlier that week, so we delivered it to him along with a Book of Mormon. And then we invited him to church. and then he came. and he brought his friends

🍂Sister Madsen🍂

 

also while driving home through the corn fields after a dinner appointment I hit a deer.

it was awful. 

Signs of Freeport 

Signs of fall

Signs that La'shay took my iPad

Signs that I hit my 8 month mark and Sister Corbett hit her 1 month mark!

Gang signs Just kidding I didn't want to die. But we did find a wall with graffiti. And nothing was the same

It takes two to make a thing go right October 11, 2016

Hellllllllo

I have received my new companion!!!!! And her first name is Hannah! And she is an all star. Her name is sister Corbett and is is from South Jordan and was on the Lacrosse team at Utah state. Super kewl. Not much happened this week unfortunately. We had all those appointments set up for Tuesday so that she could teach and then we didn't get home until really late. But there have still been miracles that have been witnessed. A lot of weeks ago Sister Peterson and I were walking down the street and this guy was putting a lot of couches into the bed of his truck and so we helped him out and talked with him for a little bit. Then this lady came up to us and we were giving them a card and the Man told us their names were Joe and Diamond and that we could hit them up (these were his exact words) anytime on Rossler street and that their house had a white swing in front of it. Well we were trying to find what in the world street they were talking about but we couldn't find it on any map. And we had no way to get in contact with them. Fast forward to last week. Sister Corbett and I are driving along and we see a sign and it says ROTZLER st. And we turn down it. And low and behold right in front of us there is a WHITE SWING. It was truly a miracle. We didn't find Joe and Diamond. But we did find Steve and Megan and her daughter. Who we are teaching on Tuesday. we also found this 85 year old woman named Beth who told us she wasn't interested and then told us a story about how she was sitting on her dining room chair watching tv when suddenly all of her bottom teeth fell out except for one. Which, visibly, was true.

I love Freeport. 

We have also received 4 media referrals this week?? Sister Corbett is great and she is bringing all sorts of miracles to Freeport. For real. She is awesome. 

Anyways. At least for this first week training isn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. It is still a humbling experience though. Because every day I understand more and more of how much of a crappy missionary I was at the beginning of my mission (hello sister smith I love you) but, God says not to compare so I will move on. Sister Corbett is really diligent and has a lot of fire and the first door we knocked she was chatting away before I could even say anything. It was really cool. Ok I will stop talking about her now.

This week was a little weird because of a lot of meetings that we had in the mornings so it wasn't the standard missionary week but next week we will be hitting the pavement and I am PUMPED. But I love meetings too, it's weird to say but they also pump me up and a so spiritual. In zone training this week they asked me to lead the music and much to the disappointment of my piano teacher (hello hollee) and all my Young Women leaders ever, I had no idea what I was doing and it was as obvious as it was awful. But I lived. I am pretty sure Sister Corbett thinks I am crazy and I am pretty sure she is right. 

🙏🏼Sister Madsen🙏🏼

I GOT TO SEE SISTER SMITH. And on our old stomping grounds nonetheless (is this how you spell that?) 

A posterity picture!

Everyone in Freeport thinks Sister Corbett and I are related. It's bizarre. I don't see it. But look at how cute she is 

from suspected burglar to new missionary trainer Oct. 3, 2016

The inspiration for the title of this weekly update comes from two sources
1 real events that happened last night
2 an incredible video put out by the church that has become my mission
dream that is titled From Gang Member to Good Man -look into it

Let's start backwards with what happened on Sunday.

We watched General Conference at our church building and upon arriving
there at the designated time of 11 we met a man named Micheal who had
been formerly investigating the church and had decided that it was
time for him to come back. So he did. At 10. When church normally
starts. And he just waited until somebody showed up. And then he
stayed for the first session of Conference and the ward potluck
afterwards.

we waited for the text letting us know if we were getting transferred or not.

We stopped by Tremetrius who we have stopped by many times and she has
always told us to come back at a different time. So on Saturday she
even wrote down the time she wanted us to come back the next day so
that she would remember.
She was not home.

We stopped by a couple other people who all set up actual return
appointments for specifically Tuesday and it was bizarre and wonderful

We talked with a man named Angelo who talked with us for a couple
minutes and then put out his cigarette and then we kept talking and
then he went inside and put a shirt on and came back out and talked
with us some more.

Then it was getting late and so we went over to a more fancy side of
town to tract and we had only knocked three doors when under the
moonlight we see a glistening white police car. We proceeded walking
until he got out of his car and asked us for our ID's and what we were
doing. We told him and he said he wasn't interested. He then explained
to us that a call had been received from someone in the neighborhood
about suspected burglars and that he needed our IDs and to fill out an
incident report or something.

two hours later Sister Peterson and I received our transfer call from
President Griffin. Who let us know that we would both become trainers
this next transfer. aka responsible. I will stay here and train a
brand new missionary who is probably on a plane as I type this. And
Sister Peterson will finally get a taste of the city and of a Target
in Elgin. She will be follow up training Sister Jardine. Who also went
to our high school.

The inadequacy that I feel is indescribable, but I know that God is
with me. He has been kind enough to allow me to have a full day of
lessons scheduled for Tuesday when the new missionary comes so that
she can come into the area excited and on the right foot. He allowed
me to feel, for the first time, a witness of the truth of the Book of
Mormon as I bore testimony of it to a member who didn't have her own
testimony of it either. In his strength we can do all things!! 2 Nephi
32:9

I hope Conference was great for all of you and I hope you received
answers to your prayers and I hope you all go take a nap for me today
because I couldn't fall asleep until around 2 this morning

Have a good one!

🌾Sister Madsen🌾

Sister Peterson told me to go stand in the telephone booth and I was
really confused.
And then we saw this giant pretzel sculpture in the middle of the street

The District!

La'Shay likes to sing I Am a Child of God off my iPad

Freeport, the land that I love Sept 19, 2016

There have been many moments this week where Sister Peterson and I have found ourselves in the car half-shouting half-crying at each other about how great God is and how much we love him, and about how many wonderful things and people there are in Freeport and that by the grace of God we have been put here in this area with these great people together. It's been fun.

There have been a lot of moments where I look around and ask myself is this real life?? It feels very similar to how I imagine Jim from the Office feels whenever he looks at the camera. It's the greatest

God is SO GOOD people. SO GOOD. There are many lessons to learn in life and many of them can be painful and not the most fun. But learning to have gratitude is not one of them. I KNOW with all my heart that grateful people are happy people, and the more you try to look for God's hand in your life the more you will see it. Transfers are coming up soon and we are both nervous for what may come so we are trying to live it and love it and appreciate it here in Freeport as much as we can while we still can. I am sorry this letter isn't long and it doesn't really tell you anything about what happened this week. But be grateful ;) that I wrote one. 

Just kidding that was rude. I know this was bad but I'm just grateful to be here and to be a missionary and to be where I am at right now and I just want you all to know that God is good. 

I hope you all have a great week

Psalms 100:3-5 

🌽Sister Madsen🌽

We carpooled with the Byron Sisters to district meeting and had a pit stop at jimmy johns and there was this man we ran into who was all about self reliance and sustainability and he raised fish in his basement and grew peaches and grapes all around his house. 

And Illinois skies are still 10/10 and the camera never ever does them justice 

Forever young Sept 12 2016

In honor of my two decade birthday here is a list of 20 things that happened this week. Thank you for the birthday wishes and I love you all!!

1. A dog fell asleep on me

2. we asked our investigator to be baptized once and she said no 8 times

3. one day it was really rainy and cloudy outside but when we went outside it was actually 100 degrees

4. ZONE TRAINING

5. I ate fried cheese curds

6. we saw three different Masonic temples 

7. we had dinner with a member who coincidentally was a Mason and he spilled the beans and told us what goes on inside

8. we were on time to bed, EVERY NIGHT

10. we got to go to another parade and fair

11. we met a lady who went all the way to Salt Lake city to go to the family history center there

12. we tried to go get ice cream for my birthday but Union Dairy is closed on mondays..

13. there is a girl who requested a book of mormon and missionary discussions on mormon.org and the address she gave us
 is not real and we are in crisis

14. we taught the kids today and they had some friends over who have had pretty rough lives and we got to teach them 
about the plan of salvation and then they both wanted to pray after the lesson

15. a lady screamed at me for the first time since I have been here

16. there is a guy who keeps coming to church because he is friends with one of the members and his name is Austin
 and he's is really tall and plays football and we told him that he is like the guy from Blind Side and he said I know,
 and then he invited us to come to his game which is a pretty big deal because he used to not talk to us. We will be his Sandra

17. i read this scripture: 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

18. at the fair we handed out a bunch of cards with an 8 year old member named Darien and he killed it and everyone wanted to talk to him

19. EVERY TIME we went tracting someone warned us to be safe because everyone in their neighborhood is crazy

20. we found a long lost investigator who had been praying for the missionaries to show up again

Zone conference!

The kids friends that we got to teach!! 

And they had been asking for bibles to go with their book of Mormons and we finally got them some and La'Shay wanted it documented

Those free masons....

Ice Cream!

have a blessed day Sept. 5 2016

Sister Peterson and I have had such a blessed week to be quite honest. Since the baptism we have been continuing to teach a lot of the less active members of the Freeport ward but were struggling to find new investigators. There is a quote in preach my gospel about missionaries doing something and then for whatever reason people to teach just start falling from the sky, and when I read that at the first of my mission I will be honest I thought it was a LIE. because Sister Smith and I were working so hard and being so diligent and still nothing was happening. Looking back now I know that there were things that Heavenly Father was teaching us during that time, but I am here to tell you right now that the whole thing about having people fall from the sky is REAL.
 We were able to find three new investigators this week, and what is crazy is that they were all through our own efforts. We have a list of potentials that will possibly become new investigators but all of the people that we are teaching now are people that we met this very week! its killer. The list of reasons that I love Freeport just keeps growing honestly.
Last Sunday a member of the congregation gave a talk about Love and how it is such a beautiful and viscous cycle and it is so true. She was talking about a missionary that she had met that taught her and helped her become converted to the church. She was talking about how much she loved her and how much she owed her for everything. Later in life she had the opportunity to help out this Sister Missionary who by then had gone home and married and had a family of her own. Well her husband had died and the wife was really sick and she had these 3 kids to take care of. Well this member sold EVERYTHING she had and moved from Illinois to California to move in and help out this missionary who had changed her life. She was really excited to be able to serve her and looked forward to being able to serve and somehow help her friend. Even if it was only a fraction of what that sister missionary had done for this members life, she was happy to be able to repay her and help. WELL. She gained so many lessons and experiences that have helped her when she was caring for the missionary that she AGAIN felt indebted to her, even while she was in the process of serving her. She went on to talk about the cycle of love and how you just can't ever seem to repay or help those that you love more than they help you. And I think it is the same with God. In efforts to be more obedient Sister Peterson and I have made a companionship goal to be to bed on time, bc for real there is just SO MUCH TO DO and we never seem to find the time to do it all. But we know that it is a rule and have been putting forth more of an effort to follow the rules that Heavenly Father has set up for us and in turn, he blesses us. NOT ONLY are we getting more (and better) sleep, for keeping this rule, but because of our tiny smidge of an effort to be more obedient God is like here, have three new investigators, and this cute old man is going to let you into his house right as it starts raining and give you popcorn, and that guy sitting on his porch is going to ask you to have a seat and ask you to teach him, and a grandson's friend of the lady you are teaching is going to start asking you questions about the church, and these members you have dinner with? they are going to invite their family members over to eat with you. Oh, here is good weather too. that wayward young woman that you have been concerned about? you are going to run into her as she is telling someone about God and temples And another thing, while you are walking around you are going to run into some former investigators that you haven't been able to get a hold of because their phone has been turned off. and fast Sunday? FORGET ABOUT IT. Heavenly Father answered  my fast during the prayer I said to START OFF the fast. and there were more kids that bore their testimony this fast Sunday than there were adults. which is insane because there are only 3 families in the ward. AND everyone that bore there testimony was someone that we had taught in that week. God is real. and like it says in Mosiah 2 we will ALWAYS BE UNPROFITABLE SERVANTS. I love Him. I love Freeport. when we go tracting people sitting on their porches yell at us to let us know if the person who's house we are knocking is home or not. and everyone tells us to have a blessed day. and we do.

> sister madsen

We went to a fair this morning and I got an elephant ear and it was
huge and delicious

Don't worry I am confused too. Aug 29, 2016

I need to write in my journal more because so much happens every week and my weekly emails never do it justice. 

On Tuesday we got up bright and early (it was at 4 am.. so it was actually really dark..) to see Sister Turner off. And then Sister Peterson and I HIT THA PAVEMENT. It was weird for a little bit not having three of us because lets be real being in a trio is always a party. But I think that we have gotten into more of a flow now that we have had a couple of days. we still get lost all the time because of a dinky but FREE gps that one of the members gave us that we haven't really figured out how it works yet. We had a dinner with one of our senior members at Applebees and we had to call her and ask for directions. Which is sad because Freeport only has like.. 3 big roads and we still couldn't find it. 

Anyways we got there and had our Dinner with the member. Her name is Mary Lou and she is really cute and really old and always wears green "because its God's favorite color" and I LOVE HER. She is probably the sassiest lady I have ever met. And she is a total pioneer. she is one of the original members of the Freeport ward. In fact she was a member here before it was even a ward. or a branch honestly. And she helped build and raise money via baked goods for the church building that we have today. INCREDIBLE. 

--Ok I could go on about other things that happened this week but as I was typing about Mary Lou I just felt so happy and so much love and I think that is what I want to talk about right now. Sister Peterson has been able to teach me a lot about how to serve with my heart. I have been out on my mission for 6 months and I feel like I have been serving with all my mind might and strength but not so much my heart. Even before my mission I think I was pretty wishy washy with people and a lot of my relationships and for a really long time I have felt like for whatever reason I wasn't being ~real~ with people if that makes sense.. And I am starting to realize with the help of sister Peterson that I hold most people back a little bit. And it is for no reason other than the fact that I know I am this gross mushy person who cries like ALL the time. And I really honestly don't feel like doing that. BUT now I am at a point in my mission where I see the difference between teaching an investigator and teaching a person. Like, these are PEOPLE. these are our BROTHERS AND SISTERS. I dunno. what I am trying to say is that I am trying to love people more because it is better. It is easier not to. Its easier to not open up, and to kind of breeze through life feeling luke warm all the time and pretty indifferent about everything. but then you are going to go through your whole life and die alone. ALONE. OK wow sorry. I have been studying the plan of salvation a lot and relating it to the mission. and how my life before the mission is like the pre existence. and my mission is the earth life and when you get here you are "born" aka I was born in Wheaton and all that crazy stuff that missionaries say that no one else knows what they are talking about. And I will have my own personal Gethsemane and Refiners Fire and Sermon on the Mount and things like that. I was reading this talk titled To Die Well https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1976/10/to-die-well?lang=eng&cid=email-shared and it talks about what kind of person do you want to be when the last hour of your life arrives and I've been thinking a lot about the kind of missionary I want to be when the last hour of my mission arrives and what that will look like and what I need to do to get there. and I don't want to leave my mission  having only formed like 300 acquaintances because I kept everything surface level. I WANT FRIENDS. I WANT TO LOVE THE PEOPLE. and I don't know how. and sister Peterson is so Christlike and so wise and is like here I will help you and I am like what no don't touch me you are like 3 months old I am supposed to be helping you and then I humble myself and say ok. It has been weird but Sister Peterson and I balance each other out really well. She gets pretty stressed out and OCD and I don't get that stressed. And she is this spiritual loving giant and I am just here trying to figure out how to even teach people (ok side note for real I have taught SO MANY PEOPLE since I have been in freeport it is insane. I think I have again doubled the amount of lessons I have taught in these past four transfers  with just the lessons I have taught since being here in freeport.) Anyways it is obvious that this companionship is Divine. and that God knows what our goals are and helps us accomplish them. There are things I am supposed to teach sister Peterson and there are things she is supposed to teach me. and there are things we are supposed to teach the people of freeport together. 

I think we can all agree that this email got weird. but it is the one I felt like writing today. I hope some fragment of it made sense to some one and that it didn't make me sound like a heartless monster.

have a good week and open your heart and it shall be filled

BYE

😎sister Madsen 

We had a lesson out in Pearl City aka the place where paved roads don't exist,

And we had an appointment at this sandwich place.. That was also an antique store??

Everything in Freeport is a weird combination of something (ex: cornfields and gangs)and I love all of it