Sister Lamb's Random Photo Gallery



Quilt Sister Melanie helped make for the Trail Center Quilt Show

Quilt the Sisters made for the Quilt Show

Sister Lamb and unnamed investigator

Sister Lamb's tour

Sister Melly loves squash?

Sister Lamb's lamb ears

Sister Lamb relaxes after doing service

Sister Lamb's cornfield birthday card



Sister Melly's pop up balloon birthday present

Making a stained glass/gingerbread nativity scene

Crushed candy for nativity scene



Baking nativity scene panel

Cooling nativity scene



All three panels of nativity scene for Gingerbread Festival

Sister Melly's White Christmas and a Holiday Poem

Hi!

Here are a few things that I copied form my emails to President Weston and Elder Watson.

Talk to you soon!

We had a baptism this week! It was great. it was a woman named Holly, sho has been investigating the Church for about 9 months now. Just a week ago, I wondered whether it was really going to happen but I think that all she needed was for someone to show some faith in her, which is something she often lacks in herself. But, she made it! Sunday was her birthday and was also the day that she reeived the gift of the Holy Ghost, which I thout was a very appropriate gift. I have already seen a change in her. Her emotions are very level all the time, so it is often difficult to gauge how she is feeling, but she seems happier since being baptized and receiving the Holy Ghost.

On Saturday, a group of three teenagers came into the Trail Center on Saturday afternoon. The two girls were sisters who were in Omaha picking up their brother from the airport. They live several hours away and discovered when they arrived that the brother's plane was not going to arrive for an additional 8 hours after they had planned. So, needless to say, they had a lot of extra time on their hands. They decided to bring their friend, David, who was with them, to the Trail Center to see the gingerbread festival and then I was also able to take them on tour. David is not a member of our church, so it was the perfect set-up! Both they and I explained and testified to him about the gospel and at the end, I shared with him in Moroni 10:3-5. He said that he would like to know if the Book of Mormon was true and asked for a copy before I even offered it. He gave me his information for both at home and at school and said he would go to church with his friends this last Sunday. Pretty cool!

It was one of those situations that were entirely me being able to be at the right place at the right time and being able to witness a miracle in the life of another person. It’s great!

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through Omaha

Not a senior was stirring, not even Elder Openshaw

The referrals had been entered into the computer with care,

In hopes that Joy to the World soon would be there.

The Elders were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of baptisms danced in their heads.

And Sister Weston in her ‘kerchief and President in his cap,

Had just settled down for a long winter’s nap.

When down at the Trail Center there arose such a clatter,

President sprang from his bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the TC he flew like a flash,

To his car and down the street he went in a dash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow

Gave the luster of mid-day to objects below.

When, what to his wondering eyes should appear,

But Elder’s Watson’s Mercedes and . . . .the sisters are here?

With a great director so lively and quick.

He knew in a moment it could not be Saint Nick.

More rapid than eagles, the sisters, they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

“Now Proctor! Now Arnold! Now Baker and Bown!

On, Lamby! On, Watson! On, Davis and Brown!

Here, take this tour! You, make this call!

Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

And then, in a twinkling, he heard in the call center

The tapping and typing, new contacts they enter.

As President drew back his head, and was turning around,

Down the hall Elder Watson came with a bound.

He was dressed all in grey from his head to his foot.

And his clothes were ironed and very well put.

A box of Book of Mormons he had flung on his back,

And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes- how they twinkled! His dimples, how merry!

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

And the hair of his head was as white as the snow.

He was giving directions, ordering left and right,

“Give away this Book of Mormon! Get it out of my sight!”

He had a broad face and a laugh always ready

But as the sisters they sang, his tears became steady.

He spoke a few words, and went straight to his work,

The sisters took some more tours and began to convert.

Sharing some scriptures and a pioneer story,

They promised each person Celestial glory.

President watched with amazement as the continued their quest.

He knew that the sisters would do without rest.

But he heard them exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,

“Salvation for all, and to all a good night!”

 

 

Note from Sister Melanie's Mom: Being Christmas we got to SKYPE with Sister Melly yesterday. It was also p-day so she sent us a email before we talked to her. She looks great and is very happy. Next week will be her last transfer and then in 6 weeks I will be traveling to Omaha to bring her home. Last week she sent us 3 thumb drives full of pictures so I will share some later.

Sister Lamb Weathers Viral Germs and Preschool Reality

Hello Family!
Love you!
This last week, we were in the Trail Center on Monday and all day Wednesday. Tuesday was p-day and then we had all of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday to be in West Maple. But that plan didn't work out too well. After we had zone meeting on Thursday, I was starting to feel a little crummy. We had a performance at the Oakview Mall (which went fine.) it felt like we were mostly performing for each other and other people were wandering in and out and listening for a few minutes. I spent the remainder of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in bed. It was boring. But I feel fine now!

So basically, the missionary work that I did this week was all compacted into a couple of days at the beginning of the week. There is one tour that particularly sticks out in my mind. It was a father with 5 kids who was on a business trip in Omaha for a few days and wanted to some see what was here. Did I tell you this story last week? I might have happened on Monday. No, I think it was on Wednesday. (It was just him). I prayed so hard before the tour to have it be a converting experience for him as we went through the gallery. We had a good conversation as we discussed about the pioneers, their sacrifices, their faith, and especially the example that they set for us; that we need to be like them! At the end of the tour, he just said, "Wow. That was a very humbling experience." I could tell that his mind was weighed down with things that he would continue to think about afterwards. I don't know what to say about it more than that. I hate the fact that so often, we cannot see the difference we are making in the lives of other people, but even just a simple statement like the one this man said was a reminder to me that we do make a difference. If he said and thought that, how many other people are there that are thinking the same or similar things, but don't say anything out loud.

Something else that I learned this last week is that you need to be aware of your audience. A preschool group of 3 year olds came into the Trail Center unexpectedly, so I took half of the group into the theater and talked to them for a few minutes before starting "Zion in the Wilderness." About 2 minutes into the film, all I could think about was how ridiculously over their heads the video was and they all began to become restless. I was feeling like too much of an idiot to stop the film, so we all just suffered through the rest of it and then took a quick tour around the gallery. Showing "Zion in the Wilderness" to a bunch of 3-year-olds: not the best idea. Note taken.

Even though we were not able to spend a lot of time in our area this week, miracles were happening! We got something like 6 new referrals- mainly from the Gingerbread Festival. Which is exciting. Other exciting news includes that Holly is getting baptized on Saturday! We are exercising our faith that she will be ready and that she will pass her interview, but we feel like this is the right thing to do. We are seeing her every day this week (with the exception of yesterday because we had another performance- this one at the Westroads Mall. It was our last.) So, yeah! It’s crazy!

Love you!
Sister Melly

Sister Lamb's Christmas Solo and New New Year Plan

Hello Family!
Love you!
This last week has been a cold one. I finally had to pull out my big, warm winter coat, although I am avoiding wearing it as much as possible because it is so annoying to wear a coat when we are constantly getting in and out of the car and going in and out of homes, but better than being out in the cold for long periods of time.
It was a fun week with new adventures.
After p-day on Monday, we stopped by our recent converts - the Buetow's- apartment for a minute to ask them a question. They were babysitting 3 of their former neighbor's kids (12, 10, and 7) and were eating dinner. When they were finished, we gathered everyone in the living room for a story. We told them the story of Ammon and cutting off the arms. They decided that the moral of the story was that you should love and serve your enemies. We had fun. The next morning, we were able to go back and do some service for the Buetows. They do not have a car and have not been able to do laundry for a little while, so we took all of their laundry and washed and dried and folded it for them. I love the Buetows. I was so happy that they allowed us to help them.
Then, from Tuesday afternoon to Saturday afternoon, we were not in our area at all! We worked in the Trail Center, had district meeting, did service at the medical clinic, and had a rehearsal for our Christmas performances. Here is the big surprise: . .. . . I am singing a solo in the Christmas performances. Yikes! It’s just the first verse of "O Holy Night" and then Sisters Jarman and Brown sing the other verses. Also, Sisters Davis and Proctor and I sing another song. The first performance was on Saturday at the Gingerbread Festival. It went pretty well, but I was definitely nervous.
When Saturday finally came and we were in West Maple again, we only had about three hours because we needed to weekly plan, but we were able to teach 4 lessons in those 3 hours. First, we saw Tatiana- who actually had texted us on Friday asking if we could stop by. She always has a question to ask us. This time, it was "Why do we need to go to church?" We read from Mosiah 18 and Moroni 7 (?) and talked about strengthening each other, taking the Sacrament, being unified, staying on the path. We also invited her to be baptized, to which she said yes, but no solid date yet. Then, we contacted a referral- a 25ish man who went to Temple Square and has heard a lot of crazy things about the church, but thought that he should go straight to the source to find out what we really believe. We are seeing him again next week. We also saw two less actives, including Sister Larrabee, who has cancer and lives by herself in senior housing. We shared a Christmas message and helped her set up some Christmas decorations and listened to Christmas music, which got all of us pretty excited and happy.
Sunday was a great day as well! More miracles! We were able to teach 2 member present lessons (which we have been struggling with lately). The best of the three was with Holly. Together, we made a list of 30 things we are grateful for and talked about how much God loves her specifically. God could have given someone else these blessings, but he chose to give them to HER. Brother Griffin jumped in as well and told her over and over that God loves her. We told her that she just needs to tell herself that she believe it and have faith in herself and that eventually, she will really believe it and then later, she will know it! We think she is doing just that because later that night, when we saw her again, she was asking what time her baptism was going to be at in 2 weeks (on the 22nd).
We are starting to look forward to the new year. This last Sunday in Missionary Correlation Meeting, our ward mission leader mentioned about the ward is beginning to write the new Ward Mission Plan for the new year. We are excited for this new plan and hope to be able to help in the creation of the ward mission plan so that we can work more in harmony with the ward and be able to help them in their missionary efforts.
I am so grateful for the 12-week training program and being able to go through the training again with Sister Anderson. One great effect that the 12 week program has helped us with is thinking of new ways to find people. We have been studying this subject a lot recently. We recognize that there is great potential in using family history is finding and also working closely with ward members to find people to teach. The hard part is that I feel like I have gotten a little stuck in the way that I do things and that it is difficult to change, simply because I do not confidently know how to do anything but what I have been doing for so long. We want to spend a lot more time with members, we want to learn more about family history and use it in our tracting, and we also want to find more opportunities to serve people. In the experience that I have had with offering service, it has been extremely effective. A few months ago, we were able to find several new investigators in one afternoon just by offering to rake people's leaves for them. We would also like to help the ward better focus on missionary work as they plan for ward activities.
We hope that with the new year coming (especially with the creation of a new ward mission plan); we will be able to change the way that we and the ward approaches missionary work.
Ok. That's enough from me. Love you!
Don't freeze!
Love, Sister Melly

Sister Lamb's 7 Minute Letter and a 12 Children Prediction

Hello Family!

I love you!

When I say that I don't have a lot of time this week, I really mean it. I only have 7 minutes, so we will have to make this quick.

Lately, there have been a lot of firesides/ devotionals/ etc that I have been hearing that are about gratitude, so maybe I need to be a little more grateful.

Something great that has been happening this week is that we have been getting a lot of referrals. We got one on Monday that came from Temple Square- a young guy who is Catholic, but said that he would like to learn. We met his mom, who seemed nice, but surprised to see us on her doorstep asking for her son. We also got one from the Trail Center and another from our stake president, but we just received both of those today, so we don't know much about them yet.

Other good things include that we got our Christmas tree set up and I got your package in the mail just before emailing. I hope that I was supposed to open it now :). Because I already did.

On Friday, we had a dinner appointment with someone in the ward. We weren't entirely sure who it was, but were pretty sure that it was a young, single lady. When we got to her home, a man opened the door. We told him who we were looking for, and he told us that he didn't know who it was, that they were Jehovah Witnesses and that we could come in. We were really confused but he told us to come inside. Turns out he is actually a member of our ward but is on the high council, so we didn't recognize him. He apparently loves to play jokes on the missionaries. The woman we were having dinner with lives with him and his wife.

Sister Anderson took her first tours yesterday. I didn't want to push her into it before she felt at least a little ready. I wanted it to be her choice and was helping her to set a goal for when her first solo tour would be, but I was getting a little nervous because she kept putting it off. Finally on Saturday night, she was trying to get me to practice singing for the concerts, but I really didn't want to, so I made a deal with her that if she would give a tour on Sunday, that I would sing. It worked like a charm. She gave two tours on Sunday.

On Sunday evening, towards the end of the night, a family came upstairs from the Gingerbread Festival and started heading straight for the gallery. I intercepted them and offered to show them around. They were from Bulgaria, but now live in Omaha, but that is really not that important. The first thing that the father said as we walked into the gallery was "Is that Joseph Smith?" I then proceeded to tell them about Joseph Smith and the first vision and prophets. At first, their attention was all on me, but as we continued talking, one by one, family members drifted off until it was just the father and me talking about the importance of prophets and possibility of there being one on the earth today. In the end, he agreed that we need a prophet, but didn't believe that there could be one. I just bore my testimony one more time, to which he responded "Is it all right it we just wander around the gallery ourselves?"

I don't know why I share this experience with you other than as much as I hate when people don't like something that I try to share with them, at least I know that I am doing my job as a missionary.

The other funny thing that happened was that a group of 14 kids (all cousins between 4 and 7 years old) with 3 adults was here. As I was shouting out orders to the kids, one of the mom's said "You should have 12 kids." NO thank you

Ok, so a little longer that I expected, but I did copy and paste some things that I had already written to Elder Watson.

Love you!

Sister Melly