April 28, 2014

Hola my familia y amigos! 

Alright, this week = INCREDIBLE. Get ready to be blown away.

First off, our mission president asked us to send this to our families so here ya go:

Mission Fast:  You will remember we held a special Mission Fast on the first Sunday of March to petition the Lord to bless our Mission with more baptisms based upon our faith, obedience and hard work.  As we are now beginning to see the fruits of that fast I would like to invite all of you to dedicate part of your fast this coming Fast Sunday to thank our Heavenly Father for answering our prayers and ask Him to continue to bless us as we thrust in our sickles with our might all the day long as we labor in the Lord’s vineyard.  Helaman 3: 35 says “Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God.”    As the California Sacramento Mission we desire to become stronger in our humility, firmer in our faith and to yield our hearts to our God.  We desire to bring many souls unto Him.  Will you please join in this fast?  In addition will  you  invite your families at home to join us in fasting this coming Sunday May 4, a regular Fast Sunday, in thanking our Heavenly Father and asking Him to continue to bless us?  Will you please copy this Mission Fast section from this email and paste it into your weekly email to your family and add a personal note asking your family to join us in this fast? 

Alright now that that's over, it's miracle time! 

The man with the tumor (Ramone) Has not been baptized yet, but he's very close! He says that he wants to be perfect before he gets baptized... and he's working on not swearing right now. We're trying to explain to him that it's perfectly fine if you get baptized and you swear, because we have the atonement where we can repent. But, he just wants to make sure that he's ready so, we're helping him along with that. 

So one really cool story from this week, a few weeks ago my comp and I knocked on a door (thinking it was a door of a spanish family that we had talked with before) but to our surprise a white guy named Alex answered the door. He ended up talking to us for an hour or so about the gospel. He was just asking questions every which way! We gave him 2 pamphlets one on the restoration and one on the plan of salvation (normally we only give out one at a time but he was asking all these questions and the pamphlets answer them perfectly.) Because he was english speaking, we had to refer him to the english sisters. On Saturday the sisters told us that they had added Alex as an investigator! They said that he told them that when we knocked on his door, he was at a really low point. So he started to praying to God and was just asking for a sign, anything that could help him. And at that moment, my comp and I accidentally knocked on the wrong door, which happened to be his. He's a very cynical man and said he was never really open to religion. But he feels obligated to listen to the missionaries because he feels that God answered his prayer by sending us. I felt so amazing when I heard that!  I never thought something like this would happen to me on my mission. It makes me think how many other times that happened and we just don't know about it. We would have never known if the other sisters hadn't gone and talked with him. How neat is that? It just proves that God works in mysterious ways and that every little thing we do as missionaries, even though it may not seem worth it, is worth something.Sometimes I get really discouraged with doing missionary work because I feel like I'm not doing anything worthwhile just knocking on doors. But, sometimes, things work out I guess :) 

Alright mama and pa, 2 more weeks until I get to see your lovely faces on skype! The member that we live with has a son in law that lives close by and we're going to use his computer to skype! What time would you like to skype? My comp and I were thinking later in the evening like, 8 or so because she has a big family and that's when everyone is home for her. So, that's what we might do but if another time works better for you we can try to change it... emphasis on the try it's really tricky to switch up our schedual. 

I got so much mail this week it was amazing!!!!!! Friday I got a really nice package from Alec, I'll send you pics of the thing he sent me. It's so nice :) And I got 2 letters from Cherry Woman and Kenzi Lombardi sent me such a sweet letter!!! It was like Christmas getting so much mail! It was great! Keep the snail mail coming!!! 

Will you please send me some of my piano sheet music if you get a chance? Specifically 'A river flows in you' if you can find it. Our member that we live with has a piano and I miss playing my music.

I've been having crazy bad back problems ever since I got to Cali... I've been trying to figure it out with the nurse here but she says that the best thing to do would be surgery... which makes no sense because it just doesn't because I haven't seen a doc or anything. Anyways, she told me to load up on IB Profen... which hasn't been helping and she gave me some back exercises to do... which also hasn't really helped. I don't know what to do about it :( It's my lower back that's seizing up again and also the pain is spreading upward. It's all on my right side... my comp tried to rub it out but, it didn't really help. I try to take really hot showers to ease the pain and ice my back but none of those is really helping. Do you have suggestions? I just don' t know what to do anymore and it's really hurting :( 

I always count my blessings that I'm serving in a very civilized area in America. I love it here, it's safe for the most part and the members are starting to feed us more! I'm really liking Mexican food! probably because it's real food made by Mexicans. But I get to try lots of different kinds of food like from Ecuador and El Salvador and Venuzela. The people here are amazing. 

Alrighty, I better wrap things up. Thank you so much for the letters, the packages and the prayers. I love you so much and I'm so grateful that you support me in my decision to serve a mission. I'm so glad for the love that you show me and how you raised me. I think that it's for the best that I was raised with sarcasm because it turned me into kind of a sassy person! I've been marked as the 'sassiest missionary that ever lived' in my district xD haha But, being sassy has helped me get along with the spanish people because they are the queen of sass! It's fun to be able to joke with them. Anyways, my nick name now is Hermana Sassy... haha nice. 

I hope you all have an amazing week! I love you all so much! Take care, keep up the great missionary work. Adios!

Love Hermana Poulsen

May 5, 2014

Hi mom and dad! 

Happy cinco de mayo!

Okay mom, hold your horses, everything will work out for mother's day don't worry. Like I said before, I will be skyping you. I will probably call you on sunday just to make sure I have the skype name and everything. I don't know if we're skyping at the same time or not but just know that I only have 40 minutes to do the skype call soooo.... make sure you have everything that you want to say to me! Because it's not a lot of time! We'll probably skype around 4ish, which is 5 your time I think. I hope that works out! If not, we'll figure something out but, it won't be exactly at 4, so if I'm not calling you by then, don't freak out! We'll eventually get to chat :) I'm super excited!!! 

My back has been so much better this week! I readjusted the car seat to I sit further back now and I think that's relieved a lot of stress on my back. I've been trying to sit and sleep differently too so hopefully it will continue on not hurting! 

Yes, I can still get pics, Yes I still love getting them, keep them coming! I also love all of the hand written letters I am getting, please keep them coming!

I love getting conference talks. It gives me something a little more to study in personal study or just some thing to read at lunch time. I think as a missionary, because I don't really have anything to do while I eat except well... eat, I read the nutrition facts on what I'm eating... I know so many random facts about how many grams of sodium are in a bowl of cereal and what not... yeah, real interesting so please, send letters, talks, quotes, stories, anything! I love them all! 

I see my mission president maybe 2 or 3 times a month. It's pretty rare though. We actually get a new one at the end of July I think. 

So this week, the dad who had the brain surgery accepted baptism for the 17th or may!!!! He is an incredible person. Yesterday, he was taking his family to church when he remembered that he forgot to take his nausea medicine (because the radiation he's doing makes him really sick) So he went home to get his medicine, threw up, and still came to church with his whole family. That's dedication right there. And the even cooler part is that his 8 year old son, Kevin, came up to me after the 2 hour of church and said 'so when can I get baptized? I'm 8, I wanna get baptized.' It made my heart so happy!!! But, because we just had an incredible miracle happen.. I have a feeling that these next 2 weeks are going to be extremely difficult. The adversary really likes to make all the worst things happen right before someone gets baptized... and that effects the missionaries too.. aye. 

Earlier this week when we were on our bikes, we rode by a man on the side of the rode and I stopped and simply said 'Hi how are you? How's your day going?' in a very normal manner. It looked like he didn't hear me and so I said again 'How's it going?' and the guy got in my face and said 'Are you retarded?! Because the way that you're talking to strangers is just retarded.' To be honest, it made me cry a little bit. I didn't realize how sensitive I was. I thought I had gotten over it, but I guess not. I knew that it wasn't my fault that he was probably having a bad day or something but, whatever, I hope that guy has a better day. I'm just not used to being yelled at like that. 

I mean, my companion and I, we're pretty cute girls! Even if people reject us, they do it in a really nice way. Anyways, I'm just going to have to get a tougher skin I guess. I wanted to say something to that man but after he yelled at me I just couldn't speak. I literally just stood there with my mouth hanging open. I wanted to say something but I just couldn't. Maybe that was for the better, maybe if I would have said something more the situation would have escalated into something nasty. But let me tell you, serving a mission is great but it really takes a toll on you, both physically and mentally.

My companion and I also pretty much committed another one of our investigators, Paola, to baptism on may 31. IT was our 3rd time asking her to be baptized and she said 'yes, but let me think about the date' So she's really opening up! We took a member over to her house for a lesson and he gave her a priesthood blessing because she's really struggling right now with life in general. And he said in the blessing 'know that God will not abandon you' and she said that right when he said that, she was thinking 'God don't abandon me' She said that happened twice in her prayer where the guy said exactly what she was thinking. The Spirit is such a powerful thing. So, she's going to get baptized soon too!!! 

It got up to almost 100 degrees this week.... I about died. Thankfully the temp went down a bit but man, I'm going to die in the summer.... I'm trying to train myself to like the heat because I'm going to have to deal with it for 2 summers here... hurray. 

Alrighty, I better peace out, it's time to go shopping for groceries! Hurray! I hope you have a wonderful week! And remember, the next time that we talk, it will be on skype! Woooo!!!! So excited! Alrighty, take care, love you so much and adios! 

Love Hermana Poulsen 

Pics from April 14, 2014

Sister Poulsen and Sister Clonts, April 14, 2014

Email from April 14, 2014

Que Tal!!! (What's up?) 

So this week was super great...This week we were teaching a family that we've been teaching for a few weeks now. It's the family with the dad who has a brain tumor. We invited them to church and we figured only the dad would come. But him and his WHOLE family came waltzing into church yesterday!!! Him, his wife, 3 sons and even his parents!!! The grandparents came!!! It was incredible. That night we went and taught them a lesson, it went super well and the dad even ACCEPTED baptism!!!!! The only problem is is that he wants to get baptized but he starts kemo therapy this Wednesday, so he's not sure if he will be feeling well enough to be baptized by the end of this month (which is the date that we gave him to prepare for) But the good knews is is that he wants to be baptized!!!! It's the first person on my mission to accept it!!! It was such a relief to here him say yes. 

Also, while we were teaching, we heard gun shots right outside on the street...and we had parked all the way at the end of the street. So when we got out of their house to go home it was kind of late and really dark. So imagine me, in a skirt and a huge bag, sprinting down the street so I wouldn't get shot xD Fun times! P.s. is was a pencil skirt so I couldn't just run like a normal person... I felt like a stupid fairy running on my tip toes xD 

Also, just a few days ago, my companion and I were at an apartment complex tracking around and one of the ladies we talked to said that there had been a shooting the night before and 2 people died. When we drove out of the complex we saw swat cars everywhere... That's a place that we go often so... it's a little scary to know that there was a shooting.. and the shooter got away... So, if you would, send me some prayers my way haha I'm sure I'll be fine but let me tell you, there are some interesting people that live in Sacramento. 

Thanks for keeping me updated on people! I'm sad I'm missing all of these weddings but I'm glad everyone is happy! Thanks for sending me emails and pics and packages. I got a letter from Coralie!!!! It was such a nice surprise! So I just wanted to say thanks for being such a good missionary mom and dad! It's so nice to hear updates from home and how things are going. It's nice to know people aren't forgetting about me too much :) 

Oh my goodness, one last thing. I LOVE the spanish culture. They are SO fun! They are all really bold and just out there. The other day a lady from our ward whose like, 72 years old called us to tell us she was back from her trip and she was ready to go out with the missionaries and work! But before she told us that she said that she was sick. She said 'you know how when you turn on a water faucet and it just runs and runs and runs? Well, that's what happened to me! I had diarrhea that just ran and ran and ran! It was crazy!' xD I really do love the people in the ward that I'm serving. They are all SO nice and SO sassy! I can't wait to introduce you to them some day :) 

Welp, I better start wrapping up so I can send off some pictures. thanks for all you do and Thanks for the support! Tell everyone back at home that I love them so much and I miss them like crazy. Take care and adios! Love you!

Love Hermana Poulsen 

Pics from April 21, 2014 below

Sister Clonts, Sister Poulsen, and Ward Member

Spanish Speaking Missionaries in the District

Sister Poulsen

April 21, 2014 email

To be honest, this week was really docile. We had a lot of meetings so not a lot happened. We're hoping to get the dad with the tumor (his name is Ramone) baptized this sunday. If he goes to church one more time he can do it. There was a complication and he didn't start radiation last wednesday so he's starting this wednesday. Hopefully everything goes well. 

I'm still with my same companion for the next 6 weeks. We were the only spanish sisters that didn't get transfered. So, i'm living with sister Scow for another 6 weeks which I'm really happy about!!! 

Anyways, I'll try writing you a letter this week because I do have a funny story about the 72 year old mexican lady in our ward (the water faucet one).   Anyways, I hope you guys have a great week! Keep up the great missionary work! I love you all! Take care and adios!

Love Hermana Poulsen 

Pics and message from 3-7-14 email

Sister Scow, 83 year old owner of the house Becca and her missionary companion live.  Blue milk from April Fools joke courtesy of Sister Clonts!

Two cute Missionaries...Hermana Clonts from AZ and Hermana Poulsen from MT

Hermana Poulsen and Hermana Clonts from AZ

Hermana Clonts and Hermana Poulsen

Hermana Poulsen squeezing through a gate as a shortcut

Hermana Clonts and Hermana Poulsen

All the Spanish speaking missionaries in the Sacramento Mission!

General conference was the bomb! I loved it so much! I can't even explain how great it was. So GREAT! And it was in english, SCORE! 

Okay so this week was April fools and my companion got me good... I woke up and went to the kitchen to get some cereal and I open the fridge only to find that my milk was BLUE! I was so confused.... I just stared at it actually convincing myself that I had bought blue milk or maybe Sister Scow bought blue vitamin milk or something. I just couldn't figure it out... Finally sister Clonts comes in and says 'April Fools!' I about died laughing. It was a good one! To get her back I stuffed all the extra twinkies in her pillow (they were still wrapped) so when she laid her head down to sleep it made a loud CRUNCH. It scared her so bad. I couldn't see what was happening because I sleep on the top bunk but I just here this huge crunch sound and then she screamed because it scared her xD It wasn't as good as the blue milk but it was all I had. Good times... 

I got your letter! I loved it! It was the first letter that I've gotten. No one has sent me letters yet. I love snail mail because it gives me something to read while I'm eating lunch or breakfast rather than trying to find out how to get through the honey maze again on the back of the cherrios box... It's nice to have something new to read.

To be honest, not much has happened this week. Missionary work always has it's ups and downs. But this week was so much better than last week. Also, conference was AMAZAZING!! 

Anyways, sorry this one is short, not much happened this week. I'll send some pics really quick. Thanks for all the love and support! I love you so much! Take care and adios! 

Love Hermana Poulsen 

Email and pics from 3/31/14

Email from 3/31/14

First my companion and I got food poisoning last sunday so that was great...We don't have very many dinner appointments because we have such a small ward and our fridge is completely empty by sunday night so sunday dinners are normally bread with peanut butter on it... 

Our ward is SO small, you wouldn't believe it. On a good day, about 60 people show up...maybe. But the pews are so small and they're always so empty. There's 8 missionaries for that ward... there really only needs to be one set because the ward is so so sooo small.  

We have 4 of our investigators tell us they didn't want to be taught. the first one did it through text. The second one wrote a note on their door saying they didn't want to be taught (as we were going to an appointment to teach them) The 3rd one just won't answer our calls or knocks on the door and the 4th one was the most devastating. My companion has been teaching them for 4 months and me for 3 weeks and I love this family with all my heart. They came to church on sunday and after sacrament meeting, they told us not to come to their house anymore and they didn't want to learn anymore. We were so sad.  We love this family so much and they just dropped us. I felt like they broke up with us... it was the worst feeling ever.  So, we ate all the Girl Scout cookies you sent in like, one day.  Sister Scow and Sister Clonts loved the thin mints! And I love the lemon and samos! So yummy! Thank you so much for them! 

anyways, last night we were still feeling down but before we went home we visited a less active member. Her life is a mess. literally, the most complicated life I've ever seen. She's so nice but her kids still live with her and they are the meanest people I've ever met! They trash her house, disrespect her and she's always working. It's so chaotic. But she was just so sad and literally told us that she didn't want to live anymore because her life is so miserable. After that appointment I just got in the car and wept because I didn't know what more I could do to help her...all I could think about was how much I wanted my mom. It's so hard to do missionary work because people don't understand what we do. People don't understand that we have these people that we love so much and when they tell us not to teach them anymore, it's like losing a family member because you never really get to see them again unless they really want you to come over. So, yesterday was hard. I'm just really glad that today is Pday, I don't think I could have made it another day without a break. 

On a brighter note, we taught a lesson to the family with the dad who has a brain tumor. He's home now and recovering really well but there's still a pretty high chance that he doesn't have much time to live. But we went to their house to teach a lesson. My comp and I didn't know what to teach so we just went in and asked what they had learned through this experience (like elder Bednars talk from GC you sent) And it was really good to hear! We taught about the holy ghost and a few other things I don't remember but the spirit was so strong. They agreed to pray to know what church was true and we're following up with them this week. After the lesson we got in our car and my comp just smiled really big at me and I said 'what?' she said 'Hermana, you spoke almost perfect spanish in there. You only made one mistake and you fixed it!' I was so surprised I had no idea. I didn't even really know what I was saying or how I was saying it. But At that point I knew that we were really teaching with the spirit. It was the best lesson we've had since I've been on my mission. 

Also, Saturday the 29th was my 2 month mark! only 16 more to go! 

Oh we also had two creeper guys hit on us... so weird. so flippen weird. I wonder what the punishment is in heaven for hitting on sister missionaries.... I will have strong words to share with those men some day... but for now, we can only smile and give them a mormon.org card... WITHOUT our number on it no matter how many times they ask for it. It aint happening buddy! 

I have a lot to tell you about the culture here, it's muy loco but I'll do that in a letter. I better send some pictures to you so I can be off on the rest of my Pday :) Tell everyone I say hola and I miss them so much! And keep up the great missionary work!!! There WILL be a temple in missoula someday and that day will be soon! Take care, Love you lots, Adios! 

Love Hermana Poulsen 

Usually Becca makes awesome pancakes but it looks like this one got a little out of control!

Hermana Poulsen and Sister Scow (83 year old woman Becca and her missionary companion live with in Sacramento).

Pics from Mexico Missionary Training Center (CCM) February 2014

Pics from Mexico Missionary Training Center (CCM)

Email from Monday, March 24, 2014

Email from Monday, March 24, 2014

So, this was my first full week in Sacramento. It's really hot.... we sweat just standing in the sun sometimes. But, it's really nice weather!

Sacramento California Temple

Arrival from Mexico City to Sacramento, CA

Mission President and Wife with Becca

President and Sister Lewis

Twinkie Minnionaries waiting Becca's arrival to CA

Leaving Mexico and heading to California!

So, some really cool stories from this week...At the beginning of the week we accidentally met an Arabic family. We knocked on the door expecting a Spanish family but they had moved apparently. Anyways, we told them that we were missionaries and before we could say another word they invited us into their home and brought us water in these beautiful glases on a beautiful tray! We were so surprised! The mom and dad didn't speak much enlgish or understand it very well but their little boy who is 7 knew some english and translated for us. So we taught a quick lesson and were about to leave but the father asked for a healing blessing. He had been hit by a bomb in Syria and his family was refugies from there. So the next day we went back and gave him a blessing. It was in english so I'm not sure how much he understood but, after, the mom was crying and they were all smiling! We haven't seen them since but they are just the sweetest family. It's cool to know that the Spirit speaks all languages. 

I'm short on time and will write more next week. 

Love You,

Hermana Poulsen