Pic's

Bo made me this cute purse bag

Sister Lyles and Sister Brown. My babies

Transfer meeting

One giant pickle, this one is for you mom

 O

My Birthday

Tiffany's Baptism

"Finding the elect is a higher priority than trying to convince others."

Hello my family,

How was your week? Mine I would have to say went from okay to GREAT! So many things have happened that I feel like it has been longer than just 7 days. I have a new companion-Sister Lyles, She is sooo much fun and only 19. What? Well is from Aberdeen, WA and she came on a mini mission for 9 weeks last summer so they wouldn't have to close a sisters area, well the same thing happened and we were short a sister, so president asked her if she would come for another 6 weeks. Even though she is only 19 she is very smart and mature. She has a very strong and powerful testimony of her savior Jesus Christ that will change many lives here in Skyline. I will attach a picture of us :) I met her family when they dropped her off at transfer meeting and they are so nice. Her mom is a little Filipino, which makes her half. I got to introduce her to the mission (again) even though I'm really not training her because she is that awesome!

Later this week Sister Lyles made goals to see what we wanted accomplished this transfer. One of our focuses is to find the Elect, those who are prepared by the Lord to receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ. President Weaver told us something that really stuck with me. He said, "Finding the elect is a higher priority than trying to convince others." The past few weeks that is exactly what I have been feeling that we have been doing, trying to convince people. Sister Lyles and I prayerfully took this into consideration and because of that our teaching pool has now gotten smaller, but we have faith that because we may have extra time we can use that time that the Lord can lead us to those who are ready and prepared.

Friday morning we were out exercising and on our way home around 6:45am we ran past the bus stop and there was a lady sitting on the bench waiting. The spirit told us we needed to go inviter her, so we introduced ourselves and asked her if she would ever be interested and right away she said, Yes I would love to. She have us all of her info and we set up a return appt. to go see her. She is so amazing and we have an appt. with her tonight. Please pray for her (Nika) We then we had to memorize what she had told us in our heads, so sister Lyles and I went running back to our house saying out loud her address so we wouldn't forget it ha-ha. Good memory. We also had a thunderstorm this week. I have not hear thunder in 9 months!! It was so much fun. We weren't having the best success at tracting and getting a little discouraged, so we went and played in the rain and scrame every time thunder shook the ground. There was an old lady that saw us and made us come into her house. But the first thing she said was, "Now don't think you can convert me, I'm a Lutheran" ha-ha. She was sweat!

This Thursday our mission is going to the Seattle Temple :) President Weaver asked us all to read the Pearl of Great Price before we went and he was so inspired to invite us to do that. Sister Lyles and I have been using things from our morning studies in all of our finding efforts. I have never prayerfully read the Pearl of Great Price before and now it is one of my favorite books. At the end of Joseph Smith History in the last paragraph this is Oliver Cowdry describing the feelings he had after he and Joseph Smith received the Aaronic Priesthood from John the Baptist.

"Man may deceive his fellow-men, deception may follow deception, and the children of the wicked one may have power to seduce the foolish and untaught, till naught but fiction feeds the many, and the fruit of falsehood carried in its current the giddy to the grave. But one touch with the finger of his love, yes, one ray of glory from the upper world, or one word from the mouth of the Savior, from the bosom of eternity, strikes it in all into insignificance, and blots it forever from the mind."

Those small couple of lines from Oliver Cowdry really expressed in my heart that it is through the Spirit of Christ that this Gospel will be preached. I have felt and overwhelming feeling of the urgency of this work. We have a message that can put eternity in perspective a message that will give hope and that will seal families together forever. Even when Abraham had to take his family and leave to a different land he understood that, "Shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even life eternal (Abraham 2:11) Then in vs. 16 He says, "Therefore, eternity was our covering and our rock and our salvation." Even Abraham of old understood that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is nothing without families and without the priesthood. He had an "eternal perspective" and I know that If we keep our eyes open to the eternal scheme of things that we too, will have our eyes and hearts open to life eternal.  I am grateful for my family and the love that I have for them. I know that there love and support has brought me closer to my Savior.

It was also my Birthday and it was the BEST! It was a little different for the fact that I have never had a birthday without my little brother, since our birthdays are only 1 day apart, but it was still a great day. We woke up Monday morning and a lady in our ward that has been helping us get back into shape ran with us around point defiance park. We ran what is called the 5 mile drive. Yes 5 miles! We actually ran it last wed. too before sister Hoffman left. It is up hill for 3 1/2 miles and then down hill for the rest. Sister Lyles and I thought we were going to die, but we endured and came out winners!!! Our ward was having a breakfast at the same park, so we went and ate breakfast with them and played some games. Then we did our daily shopping for groceries & random things, Sister Weaver took us to Jamaba Juice for my birthday :D  After that our Zone met up at Olive Garden and they surprised me with a cake and of course they all had to sing to me and my face was cherry red, it was embarrassing! lol. Oh but the Birthday doesn't end there. Sister Horton our Relief Society Pres. is making a cake tomorrow night because her birthday is on Thursday so she wanted to celebrate together and then Elder Quigley (works in the mission office and is over all of the mission cars, he is about 73 years old) is taking us out for a birthday lunch on Friday!! Yep, the WA-TAC is the BEST!

Thank you all for being shinning examples of Christ!

I know that he Lives and the Book of Mormon is the word of God. Don't let a day go by without opening it!

I love you all

Sister Phillips 

Hello My Family,




I hope you all had a wonderful week. My weeks has been great and full of randomness and sweet miracles!



First and for most I am Staying in Tacoma!! Sister Hoffman is going a skip and a hop away to Gig Harbor with my MTC comp. Sister Daines. And I am getting Sister Lyles. I dont' know Sister Lyles because she is a new missionary! She is from Aberdeen, WA and is home for the summer from BYU. Last summer she served a mini mission for 9 weeks because a sister had to go home early. Well kinda sorta the same thing this time. The sister that was suppose to come out ended up not (must of got engaged, I dunno) so, sister Lyles said she would serve for 6 weeks so we didn't have to close a sister area down :) Hooray! Everyone has said she is the BEST. She gets to celebrate my Birthday with me and come to the temple :D So I am thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis Excited!



Cute Tiffany West was confirmed this week and Dang it all I forgot my camera AGAIN! I will send pics next week. Promise!



Then we had this crazy thing happen to us. One night last week sister Hoffman and I were talking and we were discussing how we were going to get a baptism this weekend. We had no one on date and we really just needed a miracle. I said, "What we need is someone who just moved from Utah, has taken all the lessons and is ready to be baptized." The next day we had about 20 min before our meeting, so we pulled over to pray for guidance on where we should go to use our time to the fullest. We turned the corner and saw this man walking on the side walk. We pulled over and I asked him if he would be interested in learning more about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? And No joke this is what he said, "Wow, I just came from Utah actually and I am already converted I just haven't been baptized!" If you can imagine, I turned and looked at sister Hoffman and both of our jaws hit the floor. We were soooo excited!!! We took down his information and met with him the next day. But then we find out all the info...He moved here to live with a girl and she was like poison. Come to find out even to his surprise, she HATES Mormons and thinks we are literally the devil :/ Long story short. She made him sleep in the dog house and she kicked him out. Our bishop wanted him to come to church a couple time before he was baptized, so we couldn't do it this week. But he came to church and really enjoyed it. The problem was, that he was not homeless, jobless and moneyless. Our bishop tried to help him, but he wasn't being very cooperative and got upset and stormed out of the building. and now we haven't heard from him :/ We don't know whats going on now. But that will forever be one of the coolest things that have ever happened. I was thinking yesterday, "what did the lord want me to learn from all of this, Danny isn't what we would call a "golden" investigator and he isn't talking to us anymore, what was all this for," But I reflected on the day that we met him and remembered that, that was one of the loneliest days of my mission. That morning I had a lot of mixed feelings and I felt like I was hitting a road block with so many things. I knew that he was aware of me that day and he was listening to my prayers and understood my heart. I will forever be grateful for that experience and the tender mercies he bestowed upon me that day. It's amazing how aware he is of us, but also amazing of how often we forget!



D&C 6:22-23

"Verily, verily I say unto you, if you desire a further witness, cast your mind upon the night that you cried unto me in your heart, that you might know concerning the truth of these things. Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God?"



I love you all and hope you know how grateful I am for all of your prayers and letters!

xoxoxoxo

I love you

Sister Phillips

Happy belated Mother's Day to all of you Mom's!!




I was very grateful that I got to talk to my mom yesterday, not only talk, but we got to Skye my WHOLE entire family (kinda). It was so much fun. It was really good for me to see all of there smiling faces and hear there voices. Ah I miss you guys! Luckily I did not get "trunky" afterward. We went over to our bishops house for mother's day dinner and BBQ'd :) It was sooo yummy. After there we had 2 other appointments to go see people and they Both fed us :/



First we went to Debbie's home-she is one of our investigators and to our surprise she made us an Nigerian meal. Sister Hoffman and I looked at each other and thought "oh NO." Thankfully she just piled up a mountain of food on 1 plate and put 3 spoons in it. So, we started eating and there were these green veggies that I thought looked harmless, until I took a bite and OH MY GOODNESS.....THEY WERE HOT! She forgot to inform us that she put 6 habanero peppers in there. My lips were on fire and tears started rolling down my face and poor Debbie was racing around the kitchen trying to get me a glass of water. Sister Hoffman thought I was being a wimp, so I made her take a bite and she started choking ha ha.



We then went to the Covey's home and sat down and there awaits a strawberry shortcake bar set up just for US!!! Of course, we had to eat it. I was laughing inside because while skyping my family I was explaining to them how people just love to feed us here and its so hard to tell them no, because they will seriously get offended even in America! Needless to say when we got home we both were sick and felt like we had been drugged! ha ha. It was quiet humorous, but we are thankful for our members and how much love they have for the gospel and there missionaries.



Steven Cline was confirmed this Sunday and Tiffany West was baptized! Yahoo! I was really nervous for Steven because he gets nervous in large crowds, but he did amazing. He even stayed for all three hours and participated in Sunday school!!! :) Tiffany is already trying to plan when she can go do Baptisms for the Deat at the Temple. They both are very cool people.



I've already told my family this,but I'll tell it again because it was so amazing! We had a miracle church tour last Friday. His name is Laurence. We met him one day on our way back to our car from tracting. We were walking down the road and I noticed that he had a Denver Bronco's beanie on. So, knowing me, I yelled, "Hey your a Bronco's fan?" He said, "Heck yes!" Then the ice was broke, well shattered! He started talking to us and we scheduled an appt. with him to come on a church tour that weekend. Later in the week he ended up cancelling on us twice, but he called and apologized each time, so we knew he was sincere. Finally, he followed through and even brought us taco's from a taco stand :) They were delicious! While we were in the chapel he was telling us his story of how he left the catholic church and has went to over 30 church's searching to find the right one. He read in the Book of James one day and the Lord told him that it wasn't true ;) How cool is that?! Thank goodness for that book!! But the cool part was that he was talking to one of his friends the night before he was talking to us and she had converted over to the LDS church from Catholicism a couple years ago. She said, "The Mormons are the only ones who mean business." Then he said, "lone behold two Mormon missionaries come struttin down my street and yelling at me about the Denver Bronco's." He later said, that at that moment he knew he needed to talk to us. He is a great and humble guy, willing and ready to learn the truth. And of course he has already been Anti'd, but he is prepared I can just feel it. I pray that he will seek with all honesty and If he does I have no doubt that he will come to gain a testimony of the Truthfulness of the Gospel!



I am so grateful for the Lord's personal touch in all of our lives. Lately, I have felt like when I needed Heaven most all I could hear was silence. That made me frustrated somedays, but I have learned to just be patient with myself and the Lord. Change takes time. Change takes repentance and a lot of effort on our part. I reflect on the teachings of Alma when he taught Heleman "it was by VERY small and simple things that GREAT things are brought to pass." (Alma 37:7) Never forget how aware he is of you, even if sometimes we forget Him. He died for all of us, so we didn't have to suffer as much. Now we just have to take him up on that and apply the Atonement in our own lives.



I hope you all have a wonderful week. If you have room please pray for the Julian Family. He is trying to stop smoking, so he can baptize both of his older sons and is struggling right now. Thank your for all your love and support. Jesus Christ Lives and the Book of Mormon is True!



Love,

Sister Phillips

Good Morning,

I hope you all had a great week and lots of sunshine :) TODAY....Is the 2nd day of sunshine in a week...finally! It is so beautiful outside. Earlier today we drove down to Owens Beach and took some pictures-they hardly do this place justice! People were walking around on the beach in shorts and tank tops and then there's me with pants a long sleeve cardi and a scarf. lol. Its still to cold!

This week was a little up and down, but all in all it was great! We had Elder Gavarette from the 1st Quorum of the 70 come to our mission. Him and his wife spoke to us and WOW they are amazing. It was a long day we were there from 8:30-4:00pm. but well worth the spiritual noss! He was very bold, which I loved, and spoke right to the point. To sum it all up he told our mission we were lacking in faith, we should be the highest baptizing mission in the nation and right now we are not. :/ (no pressure). If we just had to the Faith we would find prepared people to teach! He reminded us that it begins with US. He said, "If we are to expect our investigators to have spiritual experiences, we need to be prepared with the spirit. We should be letting the spirit guide EVERYDAY. The people we come in contact with know NOTHING about the Plan of Salvation, about the Restoration, and about who Jesus Christ really truly is. They are not just life less objects walking around, but these are people who are waiting for you! NOW you need to go give it to them. We as disciples of Christ Need to go teach our brothers and sisters." He was amazing and I want to be just like his wife one day. She was a very powerful speaker!



Last week I had a neat experience. Last Monday morning I was thinking a lot about the Holy Spirit and how we should focus everything we do on weather or not it was inspired from Him. I knew I needed to be more diligent in allowing the Holy Spirit to guide me and teach me, so I decided to pay more attention to him on my P-day (not as easy). After I got done emailing last Mon. We were walking out of the Library and the spirit whispered to me, "go invite that family to church" It was a cute little Mexican family eating lunch at this table-a mom and 3 kids. "I thought no way-its a public place and they probably wont be interested", By this time I was out the doors and walking to my car, pouring down rain and the spirit prompted me again, "Turn around and go back and invite them to church." I yelled at sister Hoffman and said I had to go back into
the Library. I turned around and ran into the library and said to this family, "Even though I don't look like it (I was in my p-day clothes) I am a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, would you like to come to church with us on Sunday?" The little boy instantly said, "Yes-we would." I got the family's information and unfortunately they were not in our area, but I gave them to the elders and they contacted them right away and got a return appt. :) I was so grateful that I listened, but even more grateful to know that my Heavenly Father is aware that I was working on specifically this and allowed me this experience. I love being a missionary!



We also had a baptism this weekend-Steven Cline. He was a former invest. who we decided to go check up. The prog. record wasn't filled out very well and we couldn't understand why he hadn't been baptized. We started teaching him two weeks ago and was very committed and willing to change. He is a little slow, but so funny! Oh my goodness-Sister Hoffman and I leave there every time just laughing. His signature saying is, "keep the faith!" He gets really nervous around large crowds, so we actually had to ask some people not to come so he wouldn't get nervous. It was quiet amazing though-after he was baptized and the service was over, he would go talk to people all by himself. Before he would just stand there and look really awkward and people would have to come up to him. It was amazing. He is so excited to receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost next Sunday!!!



Well I love you all and I invite you all to pray this week for missionary experiences. I know that If you have faith and a desire, the Lord will put someone in your path. It may not be something big, it may just even be telling someone that Mormons are Christians, but whatever it is, it will strengthen your testimony and prepare you for bigger and better experiences in the future!



Isaiah 40:28-31, "Has thou not known? has thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the Earth, fainter not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." Now go fly!



Love you all,

Sister Phillips