Charlie

Hey Y'all 

Well this week has been super fun. 

Monday of course it was p day. Well every monday a member feeds us!! Also they do the Sonic Milk Shake mondays for us. So it is pretty good!! Also we got a cake from a member to welcome us sisters in. Which was really good. I really enjoyed it. 

Tuesday it was District meeting. Well just to say every week each missionary does a training because we are so small. but super okay with that too!! 

Well today we had a lesson with Jacquline and it was a wonderful lesson. She had so many questions for us. We totally chanced our lesson plans. I love that when it happens like that. 

It was an amazing lesson. She had questions about the prophet and we were able to have her pull up a Mormon message about it. I love how the church has great videos for others to watch. 

Wednesday 

Well every other week we help with the church and help do the Food Truck. So that was super fun. Helping those members who need that food and getting it into their areas. The one thing that is super cool is that the members love coming out with us Sisters. 

Well just to say we had our book of Mormon class and finished the Isiah Chapters!! Sometimes those are hard to explain but we did it. 

Thursday we helped a less active with a moving truck. we unloaded everything out of the truck for her. She was so grateful. (Ashley)

Later that day we heard the Ice Cream truck and my companions rule is if we see if we have to stop by it. So we where walking and the truck stops right by us. Which was super cool. Also the neat thing is that we where able to talk with a less active member while eating our ice cream then she invited us in so we could talk some more. It was super cool!! 

The lord puts things in our path for a reason. 

Friday

Well we did some more service with Ashley we organized her things because they where going to have a yard sale because her parents are moving and she is moving with. So we called the elders again to see if they want to help her again. So we spent a pretty good amount of doing service. 

Saturday

Well we helped Ashley with her yard Sale. She was doing great. Lots of people were coming and just loved the stuff she was selling. 

We went out with a member and on the way back from our appointment we had Peach Ice Cream. It was so good!! 

Sunday was super good. The talks focused a lot of pioneer work. The Primary kids song their songs about pioneers. It made me smile. 

Well hope everyone had an amazing week. Thanks for all you do. I love ya! Pray for you every day!! 

Mosiah 2:17 When you are in the service of your fellow beings you are only in the service of your god!!

Have the best day of your entire life. 

Kallie

Hello y'all! 

This past week I have focused a lot on Faith and the importance of the Book of Mormon. As I read in Mosiah 5:7 it said "your hearts are changed through faith on his name..." We are only going to change if we have that faith, as well as the desire to change. God works by power, but his power is usually exercised in response to OUR faith. 

We increase our faith in Jesus Christ through actions. As we choose to keep the commandments and to act on the things we feel are right, we will increase our faith. We have all gone through trials and will continue to go through them. I have seen my faith in Jesus Christ grow as I have relyed on him for help through prayer, scripture study, and attending church.

I read on a little further in The Chapter and the 12 verse says "I say unto you, I would that ye should remember to retain the name written always in your hearts, that ye are not found on the left hand of God, but that ye hear and know the voice by which ye shall be called, and also, the name by which he shall call you." That really stood out to me because sometimes people don't know Christ, or have the desire to learn who he is, but still expect him to help them through those hard times without putting any effort forward. It reminds me of a story where three men are brought into a room, the man who is interviewing them asked them all a simple question, "who is Jesus Christ? The first man said "oh he died for our sins, he is our older brother" the man said correct, go into this door. The next man came in and the same question was asked. He responded "he is the messiah, he wants us to live with him again" he said correct go into this door. The third man came into the room and dropped to his knees and said " my Lord, My God!" We all need to be able to be like the third man, and recognize Jesus Christ when he comes, by doing so we will recognize him and his voice. 

Being a missionary can defiantly be hard but, I have started to discover  my faith increase when I decide to study the scriptures, I have the opportunity to study them for 2 hours, they are precious hours that help me dedicate that time to the Lord. While I strengthen my love for the gospel it has helped me strengthen my faith. It has also allowed me to understand the doctrines of the gospel on a missionary level. 

The best way I have found to learn about the gospel  is to seek to do as Jesus did. As a missionary we need to Be friendly with everyone we meet. Go the extra mile and help people beyond what is expected, service!!!! Service is a great way to show people service and love. As a missionary you learn to love people on a deeper level, Christlike charity shines through Us  and we find the strength that we need to continue to allow his Light shine and faith grow. I've found that seeking to do God's will and striving to live like Jesus Christ taught us to live, has allowed me to grow each and every day! 

Sister Buckner and I are doing great things here in Harrisburg, we love the work and are doing great things. We have recently started working with an investigator named Naroo. We met Naroo on Saturday and started talking about

the Book of Mormon and how it can bless our life. We invited him to church and he came. He originally met the Elders the week before and we happened to run into him and teach him. He loved church as well. We met with him after church and invited him to be baptized. He said he would be baptized if he knew it was true. We also met Maria. We picked Maria,  one of our former investigators, she came once to sacrament with her baby Amy in April. She was happy to see us and glad to be working with us again. She is in a much better place now to investigate and learn more. 

I hope you all have a blessed week, remember to trust in God and his timing. It may be hard, but I promise it will all be worth it! 

With Love,

Sister McCulloch 

The theme of Lonnie's mission...

I think my daughter needs a class on time management.  It would serve her right if I went in and added one to her fall schedule at BYU.  :)
A little over a month and our Hermana will be home.  We are getting excited!  Here is her email for the week:

No time this week......so.....sorry if I didn't respond personally to any of your emails! I tried! :(

I don't really know what to talk about this week. Hector Vigil was baptized! It was just......so amazing. It made me so happy. I can't remember if I have told you about him before, buuuut what happened is that we met his family on our first day here in La Ponderosa. His grandson, Hector Javier, is the bwai that got baptized about a month ago. His wife has been a member for almost twelve years and Hector just....never listened to the missionaries. He was Catholic, busy with work, and just.....didn't want to listen to them. We started visiting them because Mirna, his wife, wanted the grandson to be baptized, so we continued teaching him. One afternoon, Hector came back from work, and we took advantage and showed him "Gracias a Èl--yes. Now you know how long ago that was.... :) jaja Well anyway, he finally started talking a little more to us. And then a week and a half later, he told his wife he wanted to come to church with her. At first she didn't believe him, but the next morning, he woke up early, showered, and drove everyone over. The obispo snagged him before he could leave right after the sacrament meeting, and they spent about an hour talking. He later decided he wanted to listen more from us missionaries. And so the teaching began....

It was difficult to teach him at first because that all happened when Hna. Alsdorf went to the hospital (and he was NOT one of the investigators I had phone lessons with... :) jaja), so it took us a few days to finally visit him. When we did manage to make it over, he began chatting and the visit went suuuuper long. In fact, we didn't have time to teach the Restoration like we had originally planned. So we showed "Gracias a Èl" and once again, the Spirit testified to him of the Expiaciòn and eternal families and he agreed to be baptized on the 17 of julio--the day of his daughter's birthday. She is the other member in the family and he thought it would be a good gift for her... Well....poco a poco, we have seen the change in him. As he stood there in that baptismal font and came up out of the water, he just.....shined. I have never seen a smile more radiant than what I saw on Hector's face that night. He wants his eternal family and now he has finally opened the door that leads him to such a wonderful gift! 

This is changing my life. Each and every day I am receiving manifestations of the truth. I see more and more how much this gospel has blessed my life and my family. I can't live without it. Never again will I go to church on Sunday "just to go." I go because I know that it is what Heavenly Father needs me to do and it's what I WANT to do. And I want others to feel that same happiness that I do....

Find opportunities to invite others to share the happiness you have! And honestly stop to think about why this gospel is a part of your life and why God has blessed you with it NOW.

I love and pray for you all. Keep staying strong

Love Always,

Hermana McCulloch

Multi Zone conference with Elder and Sister Ochoa

Baptismo Photo

Sorry for slacking

I apologize for slacking off the blog the past couple of weeks.  It has been extremely busy with school and a new job.  I will try harder to keep this up.

Here's Kallie for this week:

Hello y'all! 

This has been such a great week!!  Last P-Day we went bowling! It was so much fun! 

My companion and I are doing great work here in Harrisburg, although the work is rather slow, it's hard when appointments get cancelled and your left to a day planned of finding, but there is where the miracles take place! We were knocking on doors in one areas we were in and the owner came out and started to yell at us and tell us that we were not allowed to walk around and teach people, because we were trespassing, and told us to leave and that we couldn't come back. It was awkward! He said, "you can't be here without an invitation" so, I said "can we come see you tomorrow!" He said yes, we in reply said "Perfect! We will see youtomorrow!" "No unhallowed hand will stop the work from progressing.. including apartment managers! We will find investigators in that area one way or another, he won't keep us away! ;) 

We went and saw Chassidy one of our less active members on Tuesday to see how she was doing and to talk about the sacrament. We met her friend Bryanna who accepted a baptismal date. We went back Friday night with Sister Nelson, we realized she (Bryanna) is kind of crazy. She talks really fast and was just going of about energy. and moon signs and how she gets closer to Jesus when she was drunk and something about seeing a vision of how the pyramid were built. She called Jesus her Bae. Finally after an hour of her monologue we escaped ad were all just speechless. I don't know what just happened. It was awkward, she defiantly isn't getting baptized, and clearly isn't ready.

Awkward moment of the week: We went to go help Chassidy pack because she was moving and turns out she wasn't there but our friend Bryanna with all foretold knowledge was. we went to help Chassidy clean her apartment because she had to get out. It was just Bryanna and the two girls, she said she need us to watch the kids for a minute which was awkward because we aren't suppose to watch kids. but then Bryanna said she needed to talk to us, and ten she just started talking really fast and she she sat there and lectured us for a good 45 minutes more about signs, energy and how the Book of Mormon hasn't been foretold and how its a book that's going to tell the future. she said made NO sense! we finally escaped and left! Girl went crazy on us

we wen back and shred the gospel with D Ivory, the guy we met before the manager rudly told us to leave! WE started having a really nice conversation with him and started teaching him and then his drunk dad starting talking to us and asking us random questions about truth and belief, and asked us over and over again, "YOU FEEL ME?" and getting up in our face, and then some other guy comes up and starts talking to us and told us how much he likes studying and mediating and then I wasn't paying much  attention anymore, but he did tell us of a "vision of the new heavens...castles miles high and a temple mad of gold....." Crazy people!!!! AAAAAHHHH

I love the gospel and love learning new things! As I have read the Book of Mormon diligently. I have learned more about who I am, who I can become, and what are the things I need to do now in order to progress and live righteously. Live a righteous mission and become and effective missionary. I've also learned by studying the scriptures more about God and his plan of happiness for all of us here on earth. By studying the scriptures daily my faith in and love for Jesus Christ has increased dramatically and I can say with conviction that I trust His gospel to be true,as one of his disciples, His example is one I should follow and want to strive to become like. Through scripture study I have grown confident in the truths that anyone who reads the Book of Mormon can find answers they wish to and desire to receive. It has blessed my life and that's why I want to share it with others! 

Funny Church Moment: One of the youth stood up to speak and he said "In Mormon fashion, I am going to bear m testimony" He also said "I am going to talk for 5-7 minutes." Another funny moment the high council member who spoke said "Brothers & Sisters how are you?....(Silence)...GREAT!!! It was so funny!

when life gets crazy, just testify and if they don' listen, still testify!

Love y'all!!
Sister McCulloch

Here's Lonnie's for this week:

So this week was super great!! We started off with an AMAZING multi-zone with Élder Ochoa, from the Area Presidency. He talked a lot about our authority as representatives of Jesus Christ, having faith, and finding the THOUSANDS of souls that the Lord has prepared for us. Hna. Alsdorf's and my desires are just bubbling over to talk with everyone and let them know Who has sent us here to this area in La Ponderosa.

After the multi-zone, I stayed after for the Leader's meeting and yet again, it was so edifying. I have realized just how much this mission is not only preparing me to be a good missionary, but it has also been preparing me to be the servant of God that God wants and needs me to be for the rest of my life. I feel like we accomplished so much as we made inspired plans to help the mission progress, but also it was a great lesson on how to recognize the promptings of the Spirit and then to act on those impressions. It reminded me a lot of what Henry B. Eyring teaches in his talk "Act in All Diligence." If you haven't read that talk, do it. And then apply it. Only as we act in all diligence, doing the will of the Lord, will we ever be able to see God's miracles in our lives.

This week brought a lot of miracles, but I only have time just to share a few experiences.... Hopefully my journal will receive enough attention this week for me to catch up! :) So here is my excerpt from my letter to President Hintze.... :)

"Hector Vigil is still on fire--progressing amazingly! This past week has just been incredible. I feel so much overwhelming love for this man and his family. I am so humbled that the Lord has trusted us with HIM and has allowed us to be the instruments in His hands to bring the Spirit into this man's life so his family can be eternal (in a year!). Mirna, his wife, has waited 12 years for this and is soooo happy. Hector told us this week that it's because of US. WE planted the seeds. No other missionary has been able to, but something we have done is different and he says it's because we are always happy. Hna. Alsdorf and I have truly been able to see a lot of miracles and I know it's because we're happy. We love this work. We love each other. And we love our area. We have needed to be together to watch the progression of these people and to help guide them along.

Another amazing lesson we had this week occurred on Friday--with all the rain. There's another part-member family where the husband is not a member. He has known the missionaries for years, but they never seem to get anywhere with him. Sofía, the wife, served her mission in Honduras and asked us last Domingo to come and teach her husband. We stopped by Martes, but he said he didn't have time. We passed by Jueves--not there. So we left a note and came by on Viernes. As we began to talk with them, it started to rain so we rushed inside for shelter. They live in the humblest of circumstances, but they still had a T.V. and RICARDO was the one to ask us for the video we had offered to show him martes. So I put in "Gracias a Él"--my favorite as you already know annnnnd we just let the Spirit work. It was hard to hear over the rain, so Hna. Alsdorf distracted the daughter, while I asked preguntas inspiradas and the wife listened. He opened up, President! And even though I had the grandest fear of inviting him with date to baptism, I still did it and he said he would think about it. So I encouraged him to pray. I think he will because we ended up talking quite a bit of time about eternal families and the temple. Yesterday, Sofía came up to us at church and said that logramos lo que ningún otro misionero ha logrado. NADIE ha podido llegar en una posición así para hacerle preguntas así y nunca ha ofrecido respuestas tan profundas, tampoco. The Spirit is working miracles through our love, President! Something is happening here. And I can't wait to see how Ricardo will continue to progress. :)"

I am so humbled to be a part of this mission here in El Salvador and Belize. Every day is a learning experience. Every day brings me one step closer to coming to know my Savior. My love for these people here continues to grow as well as my love for Him. I know that as each of you take part in this work, you can see others through His eyes and feel that love each and every day. Find those THOUSANDS of people that God has prepared for you.

I love you all. Thanks for your prayers and support. I always pray for you and hope that the Lord keeps guiding you to the people you need to meet most!

Love Always,

Hermana McCulloch

                                                  Lonnie's zone: she at the top of the bunch!

For those of you who don't know...Charlie was transferred last week to North Augusta, South Carolina.  North Augusta is just across the Savannah river and is still considered part of the Augusta, Georgia metropolitan area. Look it up on google.  It is a beautiful area!   Charlie is now 2 hours from Kallie.  Wild, huh?!

Here's Charlie's email for the week:

Well Hey Y'all,

Well had Transfers last week! So now I am in the North Augusta Zone/ Ward!!

It is really cool!! I really love it here. So that means if I am in North Augusta I am in South Carolina!!! Super close to Sister Kallie McCulloch!!! 

Well My Companion is Sister Richardson!! She is from Salt Lake City Utah!! She has been out for a way long time. Which means she goes home next transfer. Which is super sad for me because I get a new companion!! But good for her because she is going home to family!! 

Well just to say I am really loving it here!! We cover a really big area!! But that is a good part!! We live in a trailer. It is super cute!! It is prefect for missionaries. 

Well a weird but cool thing is my District is pretty small. All we have is the Elders. Which we share the same ward. So that means every district meeting we get to all do a training!!   

Well every week we have a book of mormon class. Which is super fun. Reading the scriptures is the best!!!!  

Well Thursday my companion and I where walking to this house that we got a referral from someone. So we thought it wasn't so far. So we kept on waking. Well the cool thing is that we met a guy and he asked us if we wanted to shoot one of his arrows!! 

He told us to come back and brings the elders by as well. It was pretty cool!

Later that night we went walking with a less active and walked 9 miles. It was super cool!! 

Sister Richardson and I realized that we had walked a total of 12 miles that day. But we had fun with it. 

Well I love all of ya. 

Talk you should read or listen to.. 

Hank Smith. Front row teenager. It can be put in any wards besides a teenager. In our zone training that is what we listen to and I said we can relate it to us as Missionaries. Not to be a Back row missionary to be a front row missionary and want to learn more. to want to help everyone come closer to the.

Well have a great day and an amazing week!! 

New address 

Sister CharLynn McCulloch 

840 Springhaven Dr 

North Augusta, SC

29860

Have the best day of your entire life!!! :) :)