Happy New Year's Adam! (Because Adam came before Eve)

Shout out to Eli for the funny joke of the day! :)

I am just in a fabulous mood today. It is amazing how much an extra hour of sleep can do for anyone, especially a missionary. It is getting to the end of the transfer (we find out what is happening on Saturday) and I am a little exhausted, but other than that ALL IS WELL!

We made this new little board thing that helps us to stay organized when daily contacting our investigators. I love to see how much we are capable of, written down! We have a substantial amount of people we are teaching, so we are keeping busy. We are able to see the fruits of our labors as we are going from day to day finding new people to teach. Also, when we aren't teaching we are finding. It's a vicious, and wonderful, cycle. We go to specific part of our gigantic area and try to talk to as many people as we see, as well as knock on doors of people who we have talked to before.

Christmas was amazing. Thank you for all the useful gifts that were sent to me! I love that I can use everything that I was given. Mom, Eli, and Dad, yours will probably be used the most ;) You are so sweet to me! 

(this is that part in the John Bytheway CD when he says "for those of whom are in our audio audience..." then he explains what he is drawing. Remember that? Anyways.......)

Because of some not very happy circumstances (but to our benefit) the sister missionaries in East Stake came and stayed with us Christmas Eve. We woke up in the morning and all opened our presents together. I felt like if I closed my eyes tight enough that I could smell home :) We left after studying for Skyping the family. I loved to see all your little faces. (AND THANKS FOR TELLING ME YOU GOT BRACES MOM!!! :P) My favorite of all the presents was to find out that BOTH of my older brothers are expecting children. What a blessing. It was a little hard to realize that things won't wait for me until I put my head on straight and thanked God for the blessing the little babies will be in my life... and I guess to everyone else. haha.

For the rest of the day we went from member to member and had short lessons with them. Lauren Thomas took us to Del Taco for lunch, and we had dinner with none other than Kelsey Crouch. I love those chicas!

I am excited for all the work that is being done here. I sent an email to my friend with all the things I am loving here. I will PS it. :)

Happy New Year y'all! It's 2014. I come home this year...

~Smiles from Sunrise

Sister Fields

P.S.

I love the church.

 I love the gospel. 

 I love my Savior.

 I love my Father.

 I love my life.

 I love being here.

 I love being a missionary.

 I love you all.

 I love the Book of Mormon.

 I love the Bible.

 I love reciting the first vision.

 I love reading other missionaries emails home.

 I love being an example to my family.

 I love praying.

 I love sleep.

 I love Vegas sunsets.

 I love getting unexpected texts from investigators.

 I l love meeting new people every day.

 I love how on the days I feel the worst, my hair always looks great.

 I love doing service for members.

 I love looking through my old notes.

 I love updating the area book.

 I love long showers thinking about what I can do to improve myself as a rep of Jesus.

 I love Las Vegas. 

 I love the Las Vegas Temple.

Twas the day before the day before Christmas and all throughout Vegas...

So here is Elisha's story.

We were doing ward council visits, which means all the leaders of our ward come together and anyone else that would like to join and they visit less active members of the ward, ward members they have never met, new move ins, and people like that. I always love them because they produce miracles! Leslie Freitag and I were companions. She drove us to our first how; Veronica Long. We pulled into a humble trailer park, kind of wishing that the visits were when the sun was out. We knocked on the door and a skinny little 17 year-old answered. By her facial expression, we guessed that she was excited we were there but didn't really know who we were.

"Hi. I am Sister Fields. And this is my friend Leslie. We are representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. We are visiting tonight to invite you and your fami...."

"OH my GOSH! We were just talking this morning about how I wanted to get baptized! I can't even believe you guys are here. No way. Mom. Grandma! The Mormon missionaries are here! Please, sisters, come in. This is my son Parker and I know that I need to be baptized to set a good example for him and to be with him forever!"

As you can imagine we were a little taken aback. In a good way... a very, very good way. She went on to share a little of her story. She lives there with her mom, aunt, cousins, grandmother, and her fiance and son. There are a lot of people there, but she is doing well. She took the discussions when she was younger, but her family and her fear of water got the best of her.

Now, she is a little more willing. She loves to learn and reads the Book of Mormon all the time. Every single lesson we have with her the light in her life grows and she just becomes happier. I love teaching her. I love her. I love her family.

In other news JENNY AND NATHAN ARE HAVING BOY NUMBER #3!!!!!!!!! Good little Monkey will have 3 brothers! I am so happy that my family is growing while I am gone :) It is such a blessing to see everyone happy and blessed.

I am excited for Christmas. This has been a happy week. We had our Christmas program. I will have to send a video of our little skit home. While everyone was changing I played Dad singing to be on my bear. I was so happy! I will send pictures when I remember to bring my camera to emailing! :)

Have a Merry Christmas! And watch this video!!
http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=2874125972001

Yesterday our new investigator chewed me out.... that was nice! It's a jollly hollly holiday.

So last week we got a referral from the Winterwood Elders for a girl named Leilani. She is 21 and has had a hard life. I commend her on her dedication to God even though she has been on her own, in Vegas, since she was 14. She gave us a small glimpse of it in our lesson yesterday. Anyways I am getting ahead of myself...

We called her Saturday night and she was at a member's home! They were doing nails, and she said "We really were JUST talking about how I should go to a single's ward...

Well thank you for that perfect timing, Spirit. She was at sacrament meeting the next day and really enjoyed it. You could tell she was feeling the spirit and feeling comfortable because she wanted to talk a lot and had a lot of valid questions. She is really searching for the truth! Right after the sacrament, still during the meeting she leaned over to me and said "Sister Fields. I want to be baptized. Will you go with me to throw away my cigarettes?"

Well, most certainly we did! She followed us a little shaky to the restroom where she asked me to join her in quitting and stop biting my nails. (Going strong so far... but let me tell you that was an addiction I didn't know about! whoops...) She even threw in her lighter she was really attached to because it was from a friend of a long time. During our third hour she texted her boyfriend and said they need to break up and that she is moving out. We are so proud of her an her decisions. We went to her house afterward and much to anyone's surprise (because she was talking to me the whole time at church and holding onto my arm walking between classes and things...) she chewed me out for 20 minutes about how I am bossy, disrespectful, and need to realize that "because I am only 19, you have no life experience to allow you to talk to me the way you are." That was so sudden and rude and weird.... I literally cried because I was so caught off guard and embarrassed in front of my companion and member that came with us. 

I mostly just apologized. It was weird. In the drive way the sisters calmed me down and told me the things weren't true... I will tweak a few things while I am around her as to not offend her again. She is cool though. She has just been through a lot so she is working through things in her brain and her emotions I am sure. 

We also have a new investigator named Elisha. (EE-Lee-sha) She is 17, and has a 10 month old, and is marrying her fiance on the 28th! I will tell all about her story next week. The Family History Center is going to close right now because of the holiday. I love all of you. I pray for all of you. I am grateful for the updates from Oregon. Merry Christmas! :)

See you in 9 days!!

Smiles from Sunrise! :) 

Sister Fields

*you know the tune* LAST CHRISTMAS, I WAS AT HOME and the very next day I left on my mish. THIS YEAR to save you from tears, I'm skyping home on Christmas! :D

Please let me first tell you what happened RIGHT after we left emailing last week. Back ground story: We email at a different place than the rest of the zone because we cover the area over the huge Family History Center, the zone leaders ask us to give a ride to a set of Elders so the little Family History Center isn't packed all day. I love to serve, so whatever they need! :) Anyways... We have been driving Elder Cuevas (our district leader from Mexico) and Elder Ramos (his companion from the Philippians). Honestly, sometimes we have a hard time understanding them. The language barrier is always entertaining! :) Anyways, we were on our way home and I was telling a story about Courtney and another one of my friends and I said "crush" and they both looked super confused. So we had to explain that word, compared to a car crash. So funny. Then Elder Cuevas asked us to tell him funny sayings like, (in his own words, and thick Hispanic accent) "this ain't my first time at the rodeo." What does Sister Fields decide to share? "YOLO" and "Ain't nobody got time for dat!" Lemme tell you... best idea I have ever had. (I hope that when you read this you laugh half as much as I did, it's good for the abs.)

Moving on... Tuesday I was sick. My head was really dizzy and I was having a hard time focusing and I had a terrible head ache. Essentially my body was done working so I just slept for a whole day. And I wrapped the family's Christmas packages.... It was nice to take ZZZQuil and pass out for literally 16 hours. Mom would be happy. Needless to say I am feeling GREAT today. ha-ha. Last transfer was really exhausting and I really just think I needed to recover. :) I am grateful for that day. Sister Pierson slept the whole day too. That poor girl was tired too. She didn't need to be sick to know. Really, I think that is all that I needed to get me through this last nine months. (OH MY GOSH! I DON'T WANT  TO TALK ABOUT THAT!)

Moving on again... This past Wednesday was Zone Leadership Council. What an amazing meeting it was. I wish that all of you could be a fly on a wall in a missionary meeting. The spirit is tangible and the comments that are made are profound and simple. I love to think that each of us is set apart from the world, so when the room is packed full of missionaries there is no room for the world in it at all! :) One of the things that stood out most to me was the time that Sister Neider asked us to share a "one liner" we have read recently in the New Testament. It was like the spirit of peace was passed from person to person. It was weird to feel so comfortable that I had a hard time breathing! Everyone that raised their hand gave a piece of their heart  to the class. I wrote a lot of them down. I want to learn the New Testament better, I have been reading it (with the mission) in preparation for Christmas!

Thursday was weekly planning, so we ate all the food in our kitchen and beyond. (missionary joke)

Friday we had zone training meeting. I did a training on being a more consecrated and dedicated missionary. What a training to be asked to give on your nine months mark.... We started by making paper air planes (by the way, I know now how to make the best paper air plane!!) While they were making the planes I was setting up my things at the front. We all went to one side of the room and threw them and talked about how they were destined for glory. Everyone was laughing and excited about what the lesson was about. I asked an Elder (the second fastest plane) what some things are that distract us as missionaries. As he was talking I was just casually dipping the plane into a pitcher of water and swirling it around. Everyone was shocked, and chuckled a little. I went to the same spot we threw it from the first time and the plane left my hand and hit the ground! We went through that a second time except I just ripped the plane a tiny, tiny bit. The lesson goes on to talk about how little things get in the way of big miracles. We all wrote what we wanted to change about our selves on a note card and I lit them on fire. I also told a super long and intense (meaning like 3 minutes) story about the Atonement and what it means to me. The training went really, really well. I loved to see the excitement build in everyone. I loved to see the light in their eyes as they realized that they are capable of so much more! :) What a blessing it was to be asked to do that!

Saturday was really cool. We had an awesome dinner with Karina, Ms McDade and her friend Erica. She started a non-profit and has an amazing life story. She just needs to get baptized. Everyone should watch the video we shared with her at dinner! It helps get the Christmas spirit pumped into our veins! http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=2874125972001 

WATCH IT! :D

Well, I am running out of time to email. I will close here just with a little thought on the Book of Mormon. I know that it is the word of God and I have seen it change the lives of many! I am grateful for my opportunity to serve!! :) 

Smiles from CHILLY sunrise!

Sister Fields

9270 S Maryland Pkwy

Las Vegas, NV 89123