New-ness

Finally ready to write this big long letter. Are you ready for all that has happened this week? Let's begin.

We drove to Jackson last Tuesday. Sister Cottrell's Dad was flying in Wednesday and they would be touring Mississippi for a few days before flying out together on Friday. It was fun to spend time with the McDonough's. We slept over at the mission home. President made us waffles. And then we had to leave. Sister Boehula and I drove straight from Jackson to Bossier for District Meeting. It was a sad day because suddenly we were down our biggest talker.

Then Saturday we received a phone call that the Lord is taking Sister Boehula away from me too! She left this morning for Petal, MS. Sound familiar? I served there! And Sister Cottrell served there. We talked about it a lot. I know she'll do great things for Petal. I immediately felt like she was perfect for the area!!! I'm so excited for her. She's been in the Shreveport area for the last 6 months, so she is finally serving in Mississippi.

I'm leading Minden with a Sister Walker at my side. I've met her briefly in the past and heard a lot about her from past companions but I don't really know much about her besides that. Get ready to learn some things next week. :)

Besides that:

1. I have become the new driver. I love driving but the Jeep is not what I will choose when I get home. There are a lot of blind spots for a tall person like me and it feels like a bumpier ride than my other mission vehicles.

2. Passed out 3 Book of Mormons on Thursday. It was an amazing work day. We tracted A LOT. We met a lot of people. It was hot. We walked so much my feet still are recovering. But I felt so happy.

3. ...And actually not much else has really happened.

Wow, this letter got a little sad. I'll send some pictures to make it better :)

My last transfer!! I'll see everyone in 6 weeks! Let the countdown begin.

Love, Sister Lara

 Playing Apples to Apples Pictures last Monday.

 My new T-shirt we found at Walmart. President loved it. "Where the heck is Minden, LA?"

 Crossing the Mississippi River again. That makes 5 times on my mission so far.

 The Mission Office is in a church building in Brandon, MS. We met the President and his wife here before we all went out to dinner.

 The Last Photo.

 Smiling while tracting.

 Have I mentioned how much I love Louisiana skies?

 I love the South for this reason. There are scriptures everywhere!!!

 A member had a birthday so we made him a pop-up card and cupcake (in the container).

I like this shirt. Look how long my hair is getting!

The last picture of the Bossier District with one of our new zone leaders Elder Jones (sticking his tongue out). Ignore the elder on the left, photo-bombed!

"The Missionary Next Door"

Wow, so this week hasn't been the greatest for the work, but there has been a lot of spiritual uplift-ment.

Tuesday we had exchanging and Sister Giddins joined Sister Boehula and I in Minden and Sister Cottrell went with Sister Gidddins' companion to Shreveport. Sister Giddins used to serve in Minden before they moved the STLs to Shreveport so she was excited to see people she knew and loved. I think they were almost more excited to see her. We all taught very well together and Sister Boehula showed more openness (it's so much fun to hear her talk and share her thoughts and experiences).

Friday was Zone Conference so besides having to wake up at 5:00am so that we could make sure we were ready to arrive by 7am at the Brownlee Building. Our car didn't win a BOSH award for cleanest car but it was definitely the best Zone Conference on my mission. A good thing considering it was my last. Yep. No more. And that means I bore my testimony as one of the "departing missionaries". I testified of joy and said a few words in Bislama (Sister Boehula's native language). It was such an amazing day.

And our investigator called and dropped us.

WELCOME TO THE MISSION FIELD.

A mission is a roller coaster of emotions and that phone call really hurt because she had been taught for so long with so many missionaries. We visited her Sunday to get the in person explanation and she said she just felt like she was rushing into it. I can understand that it can be a scary thing. We were asking her to change practically everything in her life. So we just reassured her of our love and understanding and asked that we be allowed to continue visiting her and invited her to continue attending church. She said she would like that.

Then this weekend was Stake Conference. Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy and Elder Blooth of the Area Seventy and President Jones and his wife from the Dallas Temple and of course President and Sister McDonough came. It was another overwhelming spiritual experience. I was kept on the edge of my seat as we were taught. Of course based on the visitors titles most of the meeting was about Missionary Work and the Temple. I was surprised just how much our spiritual happiness of today and our spiritual happiness to come depend on whether or not we share the gospel today. And we don't have to do that much. Sister White shared a talk with us called the "The Missionary Next Door" by Diane Holcher (I think it was an EFY class) but she teaches that Member Missionary Work is mostly the "social conversion." Just invite people and friends to learn about you, come to church, attend a Relief Society activity, play Priesthood Basketball. Not that hard. Its the missionaries job to help them with the "Spiritual conversion". That's the hard part--will you pay tithing? keep the law of chastity? give up coffee?

I can't wait to be a member missionary.

Sister Cottrell leaves this week for home. Saturday we receive transfer calls. We'll see if it'll just be me and Sister Boehula my last transfer, if someone new will join us, or if she or I will be moving to a new area. I think we might train. Sister Cottrell thinks it'll just be the 2 of us. Sister Boehula has no assumptions. And transfers will be next Tuesday so don't expect any emails till then.

I Love Y'all! Happy Birthday to Everyone!

-Sister Stewart

 While visiting a less active she had a new roommate. This little guy was so sweet but he was terrified of the kids and decided he would only be quite on my neck. I didn't mind.

 Thursday morning weekly planning session. A moment when we don't have to look our best.

 While we waited for their mom, Sister Cottrell and I read "igloo" with these 2 little girls. Ain't they cute?

 O the fun.

 The Bossier District. The tall guy with no eyebrows (Elder Anderson) just got called to be Assistant to the President so he'll be leaving us this week too.

 I got to go on base! Barksdale Air force Base. (please ignore the messy hair, it's a bad pic)

$0.72

Finally finished all the email I had to respond to... and now its time for the long family letter! Well let's review some of those amazing, funny, insane, and mysterious things from the Life of Sister Lara Stewart. Let's see....

1. Ate dinner with a Catholic man. And now I understand more of the Catholic religion. He was such a nice man but not opened to anything we had to share. One day.

2. We saw the smallest frog ever. It was so small I couldn't get a good picture of it. To understand its size look down. The size of your pinkie nail (kids, more like your thumb nail probably) was the size this itty-bitty frog was. Can you imagine?

3. To our utter shock, our investigator we've had with a date--smokes! We always knew her home smelled off, but we imagined it was just something strange that she cooked. And then her less active husband who also smokes brought up the Word of Wisdom and at first I thought, "We know she drinks coffee, but if she really desires this, she can give that up easily." And then she said tobacco! Well, tomorrow we'll be starting the church's stop smoking workshop with her. Wish us luck and pray. I know she can do this but its gonna be a struggle.

4. Did you know Alma the Younger wasn't the only son of Alma? Mosiah 27:8 says "Now the sons of Mosiah were numbered among the unbelievers; and also one of the sons of Alma was numbered among them, he being called Alma, after his father..." [emphasis added]. I have been learning so much about these little details of the scriptures. I love it. It's like little mysteries being unfolded!

5. In the space of just 2 days of walking around and tracting and meeting people in Minden and Sibley, and very much with the help of Sister Boehula, and a little help from Sister Cottrell, there have been 26 coins added to my Mission Penny Jar, totaling $0.72. Whoo-who!!

6. My cooking skills may or may not be improving but I have been doing my best to combine what I know about the taste buds with my personal creativity. This week I have discovers summer squash rings and this morning I made German Pancakes.

7. I had an answer to pray last week. Before tracting I prayed we would be able to meet someone we could share the Book of Mormon with and bare our testimonies to. Well only 5 doors later the Lord did not only provide but she came out of her house to meet us!

8. I met Sister Lolley, a less active. As we were sitting on her couch I noticed some pictures and cards on her picture of the temple and got up to look closer. I pointed at one and exclaimed, "That's me!" It was Sister Tebbs' Christmas card. Not gonna lie it was creepy to think a woman had a picture of me up in her house before I ever met her, but it was funny nonetheless.

What a fun week. This week there is a zone conference planned for the Shreveport and Texarkana missionaries and we have stake conference this weekend. Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the 70 and Sunday School General Presidency is coming. Sister Cottrell is ecstatic, she loves his talks. Its sure to be an amazing week.

Also I have reached my last 2 months as a missionary for the Lord. Can you believe it? I can't, it feels weird. I'm one of those "old missionaries" that Greenies stare at and ask "how?" It's certainly going to be interesting. Now when I say see you soon I can mean it.

One thing will always be certain, though, I LOVE Y'ALL!!!!!

-Sister "Lucky" Stewart

 The Catholic man we had dinner with feeds ducks and deer in his front lawn every evening. It was so fun to see these precious creatures.

 I got a laugh from this. "This Shell brought to you by FUELMAN."

 The minuscule frog (that larger speck in the middle).

 $0.72

 At our service project we brought our vacuum to use also and I found these 2 using both to vacuum that small portion of carpet behind the couch. That's what I call teamwork.

 Summer Squash Rings.

 The local Methodist church has stain glass windows. This one is my favorite: the Sermon on the Mount.

We get our eggs from a member. This one was a double yoke!

Oh, the Days of the Week.

Well Family, We have reached the month of August. For me it's a celebration, for the South it's a month of dread. The Summer is always hottest in August. BUT! It started off fantastically with really cool weather and some rain. It was in the 80's Thursday through Saturday and was just heavenly. I even wore my hair down a couple days! Imagine that!

Monday night we worked on our yard. It was too hot to do anything in the day so I switched a bathroom bulb for the dead one on our porch and we got to work, pulling weeds and raking leaves. It was a mess and just because it's black outside does not mean it's cooler. I was sweating a storm, mostly because of all the squatting I was doing putting leaves into bags. It was humid which did not make anything better. I was shocked by the worms though, there were dozens upon dozens of big, fat earth worms all over the place. I saved as many as I could from going into the garbage bags by tossing them to the grassy part to the south of our house.

Tuesday as we were tracting I met a beautiful white cat with light blue eyes. I think he might have been blind because he reacted funny when I extended my hand to him. But he wasn't skittish and I got some pictures for reference (in fact he inspired a painting I finished last week). We also met the sister of one of our members. Her husband offered us water and allowed us in their home for a few minutes (one can only guess when a sweaty red faced girl is standing on your porch). She asked us if he had told us where she lived and explained no, sheer coincidence. She wasn't interested but was friendly enough.

Wednesday was the Independence Day of Vanuatu--Sister Boehula's country. We celebrated with green, yellow, and red (turned out pink) pancakes with chocolate chips (black) to represent her nations colors. I didn't have a recipe or mix so I made it up. I think they were nasty but Sister Cottrell and Sister Boehula said they were just fine. Then we had the whole Zone dress up in the same colors because we had ZDM. Sister Boehula was so touched to see everyone dressed up in her nations colors. She even made flags for people to hold in the picture. It was funny because she cut the poles herself from some bush in the back yard (we now have a broken knife, haha).

A storm blew in Wednesday night that helped cool down Thursday. And Friday we went to the doctor's office (how many times is that now on my mission? too many). Sister Cottrell hasn't been feeling well, the doctor said she'll be fine though and filled out a prescription for her and sent us on our way. Sister Boehula found a pamphlet on managing diabetes which made us all curious about how we could eat healthier. Sister Cottrell asked the doctor so many questions that he eventually turned to me and asked "Is she always like this?" and added on our way out "Watch her." Haha, we just laughed, Sister Cottrell is a talker and it's one of my favorite things about her.

Friday night our ward had a Talent Show! I wasn't planning in participating in anything but brought some of my watercolors I've done on my mission to share. To my surprise I ended up talking about them, it got a lot of people curious and one sister asked me to come over and paint her children. Not sure if I'll do that but if she's okay with it I might take some pictures and paint for her when I get home. It was so much fun to see everyone's talents, a lot of people volunteered right there on the spot to sing a song or involve their family. The little kids were so cute. And to end it all we had ice cream because the Bossier Ward is 3 years old! Happy Birthday!

The work was slow this week. We tracted a lot but found no new investigators. But there are some potentials on the horizon. But we had the opportunity to teach some different people and bare a lot of testimony. I love to bare my testimony even if it's just a simple truth of what we believe, "Jesus is the Christ and the only way to salvation."

To end the week, we met with one of our recent converts, Kenneth. He's been having some trouble with a friend of his and to comfort him we decided to read about charity in Moroni 7 because we have seen him exercising charity towards this friend, even though the friend didn't receive it. As we opened with a prayer and opened our books, Kenneth and Sister Boehula overheard a man playing his guitar and started singing along. And then Kenneth invited the man to join us! It was so cool to see him have the courage to invite someone so out of the blue to learn about the gospel. And the man came and sat and read with us and then Kenneth invited him to church! We were so proud.

I'm doing great and having fun. I'm excited to see what this next week holds. It's crazy how fast the time is flying by. I love it.

And I love you!

Your Sister Missionary,

Sister Lara Stewart

A Postcard Sister Boehula made from our zone picture last Wednesday.

A handful of survivor worms.

Who dat? Sister Boehula!

 A Vanuatu Breakfast.

  What a gentleman. Elder Anderson always makes sure to open the doors for all the sisters.

 I don't remember why I stuck my tongue out but its the first day of August and I'm wearing 3-quarter sleeves and...

... My companions are wearing jackets!

The Merrit's donkey, Charlie. I sacrificed a lot for this picture. The next day I counted over 70 bug bites on my person. Over 30 on each leg and several on my arms. Let's just say I will not be standing in their grass again anytime soon.