sow what June 5, 2017

What a beautiful week!! It is so hot. And so many people are outside!!

Back home I liked fall and winter better but as a missionary summer is

definitely the best. So many people to talk to and everyone is just

generally in a better mood. Sometimes it is kind of crazy because

there are a lot of people and it can be overwhelming but then you just

take it one person at a time and it is ok. An interesting thought I

had during district meeting this week was what if my mission was only

one day long? I think I had this discussion with some missionaries

when I was in my first area and we were trying to decide if it would

be easier to have like a two week or a month mission etc.. talking

about amounts of time. And there are pros and cons to each. The longer

you are out the more experienced you get. But if the mission was only

two weeks it wouldn't be hard to give your all every single day and

just work your brains out. We didn't come up with a conclusion. But I

randomly remembered that during district meeting. And then I started

thinking about what if I only served my mission for one day and that

day was today? And what would I do differently? And then WOW. I

realized that unfortunately I would do a lot of things differently.

Which is sad but also good because now I can see where I need to

improve. I remember somethings that I was lucky enough to understand

earlier in my mission. That Heavenly Father wants us to be at a

certain place in our lives but that he doesn't expect us to get there

TODAY. And we just need to take things one day at a time and make sure

we are doing something to improve every day. But we don't have to

suddenly change everything and solve all of our problems. Mostly

because we can't.. anyways I just need to be better at taking my

mission one day at a time and focusing more on the day than the week

or the transfer. Just focus on doing all that I can today. It was a

good experience and I'm glad that I was able to apply it to missionary

efforts. and needless to say I have made some changes and will

continue to do so. Keep repenting people.

The best day this week was for sure Saturday. We did service at a food

kitchen in downtown Peoria and then our mission nurse needed us to go

to the doctors and she told us to go to the Methodist place which is a

HUGE hospital hospital. And so we go to the front desk to try and

figure out where we are supposed to go. And we are talking to the man

at the front and he looks a little familiar. After he helps us he asks

if we are Mormon and we told him yes! He said we had talked to him

awhile ago while he was fixing up his yard but there were three of us.

We both immediately remembered who he was! He was nice and gave us

water and we had ended up talking to him for about a half hour that

day. He has had a couple of experiences with Mormons. And he likes

cooking and watches a man who is Mormon and has a cooking show on the

internet.. or something like that? Anyways I asked him if he had

cooked anything good since we last talked to him and he said he was

making pizza tonight and invited us over???!!? Okay?! We definitely

said yes hahaha. He gave us his address and told us to come by around

5. We then searched forEVER for the place we were supposed to go. He

told us to go to the emergency room. We went but couldn't really find

a desk or anything so we were wandering around the halls of the

emergency room. Then we found someone and they sent us to the surgery

floor. So then we wandered around there for awhile looking for a desk

or someplace that wasn't just always and hospital rooms then we found

someone else and they sent us somewhere else and they we got to that

place and they told us to go to the emergency room 😑 we were dying we

had NO idea what to do. Earlier in this process sister Fugal jokingly

said we should go to the pediatric floor because they would be nice to

us and take pity. Well now things were getting desperate. We decided

we would go check that floor before we gave up. We got there and met

these two ANGELS. They first tried to send us to the emergency room

but we must have had some sort of look of despair on our faces. We

talked with them for a couple more minutes and they were like "we are

pretty sure you are at the wrong place.. this is a hospital.. you

probably just need to go to the doctors office" and we said YES!! Then

they told us the address of like.. a normal family doctors office that

was affiliated with Methodist. While they were writing the address we

got to talking about the church and they had both been to Nauvoo and

said they loved it. Before we left one of the women told us she needed

to tell us something. She told us how she had grown up in a non

religious home and how she had a neighbor who was Mormon and every

Sunday when she was little her neighbor took her to church with her

for like 6 years and that now she is a Christian and everything she

had and loved and the peace she felt she owed to that woman and how

she wished she could find her and tell her and she thanked us on her

behalf and I could have cried!! I almost did. It was a big testimony

builder to me of the influence we have on other people and the seeds

that are being sown as we live the life that Christ would want us to

live. And I say this all the time but either I forget or I don't apply

it to myself or something because every time something like that

happens I feel like one of those dolls where you press the button and

it just like.. collapses haha. Anyways, to build on that concept more,

we had dinner with that man at the front desk, jimmy, and his family.

It was a good experience and we were able to have a good experience

and answer some questions. We also shared a message with them and it

led to a conversation where they DEFINITELY felt the spirit. But they

still weren't interested at this time. But that is ok. Sister Pace

sent an email awhile ago to some of the sisters serving missions and

she talked about faith and I really liked this part of what she said

As missionaries, you are helping people develop and increase faith.

Sometimes you're helping people reclaim their faith.  Sometimes people

who accept a first discussion will not let you back in, BUT they may

start praying again daily because of something you said.

After that dinner appointment I was kind of confused. Trying to figure

out what God had wanted to happen in that situation because it didn't

really seem like anything happened.. the spirit brought that back to

my mind and gave me some comfort. I hope they prayed. I have

definitely been seeing the blessings of previous missionaries efforts

in this area and I hope that I have been able to sow the seeds for

some missionaries too! Like the story of the pioneers who planted

crops along the trail out west and they would never be there to see

them harvested or reap their rewards but they knew that someone would

Love you!

Sister Madsen

Weak week May 29th 2017

Madness! Always madness. 

This week I have been really tired and I honestly can't remember a lot of it. So I am sorry.

Randy's baptism will more than likely be postponed! We went over the interview questions with him and he had some concerns with tithing. So we decided we would reteach it to him. During our next lesson at the bishops house we talked about tithing as well as commitment. That the promises we make at baptism, along with all of our other covenants, is not something that is done halfway or occasionally. Either you are in or you are out. Can't really just dip your toe in the water. You gotta go all the way under. And Randy has the desire to be in!! But he lives with his sister and they pay the bills together. He told us he had tried talking to her about it before but she said he probably couldn't pay it so he was scared to talk to her about it again. But we all built up his courage and gave him pep talks to be ready to talk to his sister. And then we saw him on Saturday at the Elders baptism which I will talk more about. But he came and he was pretty frazzled and upset and told us that he can't get baptized. He was really upset. He to,d us he talked to his sister and she said well if tithing is something you need to do when you get baptized then you can't get baptized right now. He asked us if he could still come to church and still take the sacrament. It was tender and a little bittersweet because he told us that right before Deann's baptism began. I think it made him a little sad. Anyways afterward the bishop came and talked to all of us and told Randy the story of Nephi getting the brass plates and how it took a couple tries. He then told Randy "all you need to do now is find another job where you earn a little more money!" We Hope Randy will remain positive and hopeful. But as for now he is off date.

Ok next part of this email. We were supposed to go on exchanges this week but something came up and it had to be cancelled. Well we were both supposed to go to the Morton sister's area and so we had in literally NOTHING. It was a little crazy. But we were able to see a lot of the people we normally weren't able to see and we put Kathy's son Patrick on date!! MIRACLE. We wouldn't have been able to do that if we had been on exchanges so that was pretty cool to have that opportunity. And then we went back the next day for another lesson and he told us he broke all of his cigarettes and threw them out! What??? I honestly didn't believe him but he definitely did!! 

Something I have see this week is the importance of asking people questions. Especially questions by the spirit. It changes the whole lesson and makes it feel more like we are teaching a person. Not a lesson. ;) anyways.. it has changed the outcome of our lessons every time. And we learn so much more about the people we are teaching and their understanding of what we are teaching as well. Everyone is just better off when questions are asked and the conversation is taken to the next level. I know the same can be said for our studies. If we ask ourselves questions that help us learn and apply what we are reading to our lives we will feel more uplifted and less like everything is routine or going through the motions

Still haven't talked to Matt since we put him on date.

The elders had a baptism this weekend for a woman named DeAnn who is literally as golden as they COME. She showed up to general conference and then the next week came to church and asked the elders what she had to do to be baptized??? Like. Ok. And she sings in the choir and made her own baptism program and she is literally just the best. I love her and am so happy she was able to be baptized! And the Ward loves her and she is just awesome. No words. She wanted to be baptized forever ago but couldn't because of some family issues. Those issues have changed and the first thing she did was come to church!! Priorities. It was so tender. Her brother is a member and he lives in New York and he FLEW HERE so that he could baptize her. It was 10/10

Ok bye

Sister Madsen 

This is the closest we have ever come to taking a picture together 

May 22, 2017

I don't really remember what happened this week. There were a lot of meetings, which was good! But also bad, because.. people are outside while we are inside. But it was still good.

I had an interview with President Griffin and it was just so great! He is a wise man.. we talked a lot about goals and the things that I want to do before the mission is up 😶 and how setting goals can give us just a little extra push that we might not have even tried for. Anyways.. it was really good I can't explain. He also talked a lot about how faith without works is dead but that works without faith is also dead and that blew my mind. #believe in your goals.

We had our finding/extra exchange this week! I went with sister Jardine again and this time instead of rain it was a little toasty outside. And usually when we are out we get a couple of people who offer us water bottles and usually we say that's ok but that day we were searching and seeking for the good folks of Illinois to give us some waters and we had no such luck. BUT we did get to have a lesson with Matt! Outside! Haha, but it was good! We put him on date for July 22 which is so exciting! Even though it was the least spiritual baptism invitation there ever was. That's ok!! He said he wanted to get baptized in the end of July so I pulled up my calendar and asked if July 22 would work and he said yep and whoop there it was hahaha. But that's exciting! 

Another trivial thing happened this week and that was that sister Fugal and I were talking about cafe rio and then that night for dinner a member made us the sweet pork cafe rio salad and I was the happiest person ALIVE. I didn't even pray for it. 

Ok one last thing. There is this scripture.. about being anxiously engaged... And on my mission I have very much wanted to be lead by the spirit and have these cool miracles happen where I like KNOW that there is no other way that a certain scenario could have happened besides me or my companion or some random person being led by the Holy Ghost. But it hasn't really happened. Which bums me out. But I read that scripture and the spirit told me to calm down, to not wait for the prompting but to just go for it and see what happens. A lot of times people talk about praying for missionary opportunities or just opportunities in general, they wait until the Holy Ghost is like "oh man.. this is it..HERE IT IS!!" but that scripture is saying don't wait around for me to tell you what to do, JUST GO FOR IT. Make it happen. Create your own opportunities, show me you want it and I will help get you there.

Ok.. that's all for this week

Love you! Thanks for emailing me!! And reading this!! Whoever still does haha

Sister Madsen

D&C 58

26 For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward.

27 Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;

28 For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.

29 But he that doeth not anything until he is commanded, and receiveth a commandment with doubtful heart, and keepeth it with slothfulness, the same is damned.

Plant? Dead.

Illinois? River 

I can only come up with so many titles in a year and a half May 15, 2017

The laundromat story continues.. we just gave away a Book of Mormon to a man waiting for his whites to dry. Didn't want to give us his phone number but I'm sure we will see him around someday.

The biggest news of this week is probably that RANDY IS GETTING BAPTIZED. So happy! It was a crazy story. We had a lesson in Bishop Thompson's home with him and his wife and Sister Thompson just straight up invited him to be baptized and he said yes!!! He is on date for June 11th! Sister Fugal and I were in disbelief and had no idea what was going on for half of that lesson but we just let it happen and let them go for it haha so that was awesome! 

An investigator Vicki who I love told us she wants to be baptized really bad because she wants the Holy Ghost but she doesn't want to be because she doesn't want to have to come to church for the rest of her life 😑 we got a little real with her and asked which was more important and she said if she died she would regret not being baptized but at the moment she doesn't regret it.. sometimes it is hard to rationalize with people. We will see what happens.

The main thing I wanted to say is how awesome the Sabbath is. Vicki was talking about how living is killing her. And how exhausting it is to be on the go go go all the time. And her whole thing with not being able to be baptized is that she can't/won't come to church and her whole problem in life is that she NEEDS to come to church. Elder Holland says it best so I'm not gonna say anymore but I love you all. Let us take full advantage of the blessings we have.

xoxo sister madsen

Beautifully busy May 8, 2017

Currently writing this update in a laundromat where this man is talking on his Bluetooth to somebody and he is losing his MIND screaming. It's probably the craziest laundromat I have ever been to. The change machine is weird and sporadically accepts money and last week when I went to pay there were a couple people who started laughing and said it wouldn't work and we tried anyways and used all of our money and the only one it accepted was my 20 dollar bill. But when the people heard the change flowing they started losing their minds and people were coming up and giving me money to give them money and it was hilarious and everyone was laughing. Life is wild

Sister Fugal and I were able to do a lot of things and it was awesome! We found two new investigators and got a couple of our old ones who were progressing to come to church!! For one of them named Kathy sister Fugal had a cool idea to draw out her path of conversion and kind of where we see all of this going. Because our past couple of lessons have been less than fruitful. So it was kind of do or die time where we literally drew it out and said this is what we are shooting for, is this what you want?  And she was like.. yes!!! It was a cool lesson that I have never seen so much immediate change come because of it. She called us the next day and said she read and that she wanted to come to church then we went to her house for another lesson on Saturday and she had cleaned her house!! Which is a big! Deal! She said she has just felt so much better since that lesson and she just feels like everything is so clear and she knows what she wants to do and understands how to do it. She knows it's time to change and it's really cool. It was probably the hardest thing in the world to get her church on Sunday, she had a lot of excuses in the morning, to the point where we showed up to her house in the morning with a bunch of our clothes so she had something to wear. She came to church. It was cool, I was getting mad and kind of over it when we showed up and church started in 15 minutes and she was in the shower but sister Fugal stuck it out and because we waited for her she came to church. It was awesome! She is a little older and for some reason the Peoria chapel is weird and it's hard for me, a youth, to hear. So afterwards Kathy said she was really mad that she couldn't hear because she really wanted to and said she was so mad that she didn't want to stay. A member drove her. We told her that the member was staying for all three hours and she said she would walk. We tried to get her to come to class but she wouldn't and so we said she could sit out in the hall on the couch until church was over but she wouldn't do that either. She literally walked home. Like!! Ok. But she texted us later and said she was sorry for being dramatic. So it's all good.

Another person we were finally able to see was Matt. Who was being taught in November when the Elders were in the area and he was super solid then the area got whitewashed and he sort of disappeared off the face of the earth. But he would randomly come to church. But we could not for the life of us make appts with him that stuck. In the spirit of giving people a vision for himself we decided that since we couldn't get an appt with him we would just have some real talk with him during sacrament and asked him if he wanted to be baptized and he said yes!!! We talked with him for a long time and he just testified of us about how he and his life has changed since he met the missionaries. Just in every aspect. It is so cool SO COOL. He is so solid.

Exciting things are happening down here in Peoria! Sister Fugal and I are staying busy and on Thursday we didn't even have time to eat lunch and on Friday we may have been spotted eating Chick-fil-A on the curbside a block from our next appointment (we can't eat in the car ;) but it's been fun! I've missed being able to spend time finding people but luckily we were able to squeeze time in to do it this week! 

Excited for this next transfer. 

ALSO having a vision and goals for yourself can change your life. A member shared a cool story that I don't have time to type but this missionary would just pray and ask "what do you want me to do now" and miracles HAPPEN.

love you 

Proverbs 29:18

🌪Sister Madsen🌪

 May 8 at 3:39 PM

The trio and Randy

I have come of age

Live tweet 

Do you ever just see breakfast food and cry??

And then there were two May 1, 2017

Well transfers have come and Sister Morales is leaving Sister Fugal

and I to fend or ourselves here in Peoria. Some exciting things have

been happening in the Ward that I think are really going to help us work

better with the members here.

A lot has happened this week with us, but not so much with our

investigators, progression wise. So we might have to give them a break

for awhile

A potential new investigator of ours named Steve Bible Bashed me over

the phone the other day and it was bad.  He said a lot of

not nice or appropriate things as well as all the other things we hear

all the time. But something must have been going on that day because I

was SO MAD hahaha. It's hard not to fight back when people are calling

you a brainwashed idiot who hasn't read a real bible. Ok.. I'm getting

annoyed just typing this. That part wasn't really a big deal.. but

just a lot of other stuff he said on top of that. It was just dumb.

Sometimes when we talk to people it's as if we are to blame for all of

the worlds problems and even problems within religion and things like

that.  But that happened and I just told him to call us when his heart

was ready to listen and he  said fine and hung up.

Other things that happened were that it was Sister Morales Birthday!!!

We made her some cookies. And she got two cakes from members and she

is LEAVING THEM HERE because of transfers. Sister Fugal and I are

going to need to start mixing up our morning workout routine haha.

ANOTHER THING THAT HAPPENED. I almost forgot. The elders had a baptism

this week and a lot of other missionaries came down for it. Including

the Freeport Elders. And Brother Mulnix the Ward mission leader drove

them!!! So I got to see him and it made my day. Someone said a joke

during the baptism and I heard this cackle that I KNEW was familiar

and I looked around and he was there!! It was so fun to see him again.

He cracks me up.

Randy is doing good. Praying on his own. No one knows what

specifically triggered it but it suddenly just clicked in his head.

Patience..

This is a bad and non uplifting email and I am sorry. I'm in the war

chapters in Alma and you know how that goes....

But there was something cool that I realized while reading about the

stripling warriors. In Alma 56:46 it talks about this big war that is

going on and how the stripling warriors had never fought before in

their lives. But they weren't afraid. For TWO reasons. #1 they knew

and had faith that God would deliver them. #2 they were more worried

about their fathers liberty than their own lives.

Basically what I am trying to say is that faith and charity overcome fear.

Very cool

Bye

Sister Madsen

The wifi struggle..
my mission plant is dying in case anyone wanted to know

"Let me tell you a story you little millennials" April 24th 2017

An 77 year old woman said this to us before she told us about how she tried to get married to get out of the army. And the only reason she was even in the army was because someone told her not to do it. 

Anyways.

This week my dear friend Dea got baptized!!!! She is from way back in Freeport times. I'm sure I've talked about her but she is another one of Judy's daughters and is about to graduate high school! I've been lucky enough to be able to stay in contact with her and a couple weeks ago after conference she emailed me and told me she was going to get baptized!!!! I kid you not I fell to the floor. The whole time I was there I hoped she was going to get baptized. She comes to church every week for with her family and has been through all of the lessons, she was just "window shopping" as her and her mom said haha. BUT a couple of days before I left Freeport, on Christmas, Judy told me that Dea had been talking a little bit about baptism and I was freaking out. I left a couple of days later but I KNEW that I would for sure be back in Freeport someday for her baptism. And then I get this email from her and I just lost my mind and started freaking out because I was so excited to be able to go see her and the kids and just be back in Freeport, the promised land. The land that I love.

So this week was a little emotional because I didn't get to go.

We had permission from the president to go, all we needed was to find a ride. And we did, we found a couple, but something came up one after another and all the people we had asked ended up not being able to take us and we just weren't able to find anyone.

Friday night came around and I just cried and cried. It was pretty embarrassing. But my companions are just the sweetest and helped me to feel better. I was just laying on my bed with my blankets over my face crying and my hand was sticking out and Sister a Fugal kept putting cookies in it. She cracks me up I love her. I'm not sure why Heavenly Father didn't think I should go to Freeport, I've been trying to think of some crazy miracle or person that we needed to meet that happened but nothing has really stuck out or been made known to me. Someday I'll find out.

Some other things that happened this week is our investigator Randy realized he has a testimony of prayer!! Hopefully. He has been investigating since November I believe and just has a hard time understanding the basics. Right now it's prayer. And it's pretty much everything about it. Why we pray, what to say, when to pray, who we are praying to, receiving answers, all of it. We teach him twice a week and every lesson we have taught him since I have been here has ended up being about prayer. To do the math that is 10 lessons about prayer OK.. you can only teach so many lessons about prayer. And we think he understands and then the next lesson we will go back and follow up and he will bring up the same concerns and then we try and figure out a new way to teach him about prayer. This is uncharitable but I was at my whits end this week and was probably going to lose it if we had to teach about prayer one more time. I can't remember how we got on to the topic but Randy said that when things get hard at work he says a prayer and asks God to help calm him down and it works.  Wait what..? I asked him how long he had been doing this and he said since the missionaries had taught him how. WHAT. We had no idea. And I guess he had no idea really either. After talking with him and answering a couple of questions he was able to realize that he in fact does have a testimony about prayer. So that was cool. 

Other things have happened this week, as they do every week. But this email is crazy long already. 

Love you all 

Bye

Sister Madsen