JayLynn E. Loves

Hey everyone! Im alive and doin well! Its snowing pretty bad outside right now. Sister Merrick was so scared driving over the mountain to get here to the library! It just showed up outta no where! haha but yeahhh It's gettin pretty cold! Its definetly starting to feel like Christmas!

Sister Merrick and I are out of miles to use for this month..so we have been walking EVERYWHERE. It kinda sucks! But it's been fun! We have been getting our exercise in! We used up all of our miles earlier this month. We are given 1000 miles each month. But we learned our lesson. We will be cautious of our miles for December! haha

Thanksgiving day was fun! The weather was so warm! We spent the morning playing flag football and basketball with other missionaries. And then we ate at the Noake's house and then headed to the Rangel's to eat more! haha we were stuffed! We then went to Natalie's home and played board games all night! Natalie is 32 years old. She is working on getting baptized! She was a member of the church who got her records removed a few years ago. But now decided that she wants to come back!

We taught the Sunday school class yesterday at church! We taught about the Spirit World and the Kingdom of Glories! I was really nervous about teaching because I didn't know too much about the Spirit world or or the kingdoms. But I was able to study a lot about it this week! I learned so much! I feel like I am an expert now on the Spirit world! I find it very interesting! I've realized how blesses I am to have this knowledge of the Plan of happiness! Our loved ones who have passed are not far from us!

Ed Monjar

Ed is a 80 year old man who lives by himself. He is kinda a grinch. But he is so awesome! He is a less active member of the church. We were able to meet with him this week and we shared with him our testimonies of the Book of Mormon. He said he feels lonely and discouraged at times. But he said it was time to go back to church. He promised that he would start reading the Book of Mormon again and that he would come to church this Sunday! And he did come to church! #Miracle

Light the World!

If you haven't already watched the Light the world video on the church website,,GO WATCH IT! and pay special attention to what Christ is doing in the video! Our goal as missionaries is to spread the Christmas spirit by sharing this video to everyone! Its an awesome innitiative that can help this world of darkness! My challenge to you is to find ways for each day of the month to LIFT someone up!

Cayson and Katie

We went knocking on a door looking for a Brett Meacham. But we met Cayson and Katie instead who are not members of the church. They recently moved in from California. We asked them if we could share a Christmas message with them and they said yes! We scheduled to come back on Thursday!

Well I wish I could keep writing! I love you all! The gospel is true! Have a great week!

Love Sister Tupuola :) John 8:12

After Mika and I visited the Harry Potter Christmas Wizarding World village a few days ago, We saw a few things that we wanted to get for Mika's sister Liz. Lets just say Liz is a big time Harry Potter fanatic! She's in the House Hufflepuff and she's very proud of that. She read all the books and even her children read it too. If Liz had it her way, her whole house would be design in a Harry Potter fashion. And i'm very serious about that!?! She's a die hard fan and whit that being said, we wanted to make her Thanksgiving, Birthday and Christmas a Hogwarts surprise. Mika bought a few cool wand pens and Christmas Hogwarts ornaments at the Wizarding World village at the South Town mall. We also stopped at the Fashion place mall where I found a ton of cool things to add to her Hogwarts box. There was a Hufflepuff Quiditch shirt and a Hufflepuff House shirt that I found at Hottopic which also came with a Mischief Manage hand bag for her to use whenever she needs to put things in it. Once we got a few other things, we went home and packed up her things to send out to her on Monday November 20. I wrote a hand written letter that was address to her in Calligraphy and stamped it with red wax and my initial sealing stamp. Everything was ready to go. Monday came and I had a few minutes to spare from catering to mail it out so that she can get it before Thanksgiving.

Anxiously waiting for the box arrival to Liz, Mika kept on bugging me to see where the package is through the tracking number and how far is it from her home in Virginia. To be honest, my husband was more excited about this package than me. I was trying to tell him to chill it will get there. After a few days of waiting, it was arrival day and the hours felt like a life time. I got the notification that the package arrived but no response from his sister Liz. Mika got worried that we sent it to the wrong address or someone took the package when no one was looking. So to calm his nerves, i asked her two eldest daughters Anessa and Alema if they've been home today and if the received a package from the mail man. It was about 6 almost 7pm when they snap chatted me back and said that it came in and that their mom was literally SHAKING with excitement. they took some photos and send me a video on snapchat that she was extremely happy and excited to receive our Hogwarts Mystery Box. I wished that I recorded it, but you know how Snapchat is...a quick snap and its gone. Oh well its ok. So her are a few photos of her receiving her box and wearing it on Thanksgiving day. I'm glad that she loved the shirts and it fit perfectly. #grateful

Hello Family! I've hit my 4 month mark! Time is going by TOO fast! I am seriously loving every second of it! I love my companion Sister Merrick! We are having so much fun together! We love to joke around with each other! haha She likes to lock me out of the car so I suffer in the cold! And she almost hit me with the car because she tried to drive away! lol but its all goood Im still alive! She likes to sleep walk during the night its pretty funny!. The other night she woke me up at 2:30am and told me to get up and get ready because it was 6:30! haha I got up and then realized it wasnt 6:30! haha It was only 2:30am!!! haha We laughed and then went back to sleep.

This week we had many lessons with Less active families. I love getting to know the people here in Spring Creek! Or shall I say Spring Crick haha thats how everyone says it here. Its kinda annoying like noooo its Spring CrEEEk. lol

We met a less active family, the Browns. They are so awesome! The mother, Rose, is a DJ and she also rides a motorcycle! She let me sit on her bike!, haha but yeahh she doesn't come to church anymore because of some of the people in the ward. I;ve noticed thats the main reason why people become less active. Everyone somehow gets offended. Its sad. But they are a cool family! They have strong testimonies but just don't come to church.

Funny moment.

So my companion and I were walking when we decided to go knock on a door. A little 4 year old boy answers. As he was opening the door, you can here a woman in the background saying "no, no, no!" haha the little boy says "mom two peoples here!" We waited a while, the little boy just stares at us,,,we then asked "Is your mom home?" He said yes and then you can hear the mother say,,"Close the door!" hahaha the little boy then says, "mommy not here" then he closes the door. lol it was so funny!! man people crack me up.

Wierd feeling

It was 7:30 at night, pitch black. We didn't have any set appointments so we were trying to figure out who to go to visit. Most of the houses were dark and had no lights on. We both had this wierd feeling,,like a scared feeling that came upon us as we drove down a certain home on Cascade Drive. We both couldn't quite firgure out why we were scared. We pulled over and said a prayer. After the prayer, we weren't exactly scared but the feeling we had just wasn't right. Every where we went, this feeling just wouldn't leave. So we both decided to go home and call it a night. We are not supposed to go home until 9pm but We had a stong feeling that we should go home.

Jack Martindale

We had an active member lesson with Jack (12 years old) and his mother. They are awesome! We talked about the Restoration of the gospel and after we had our lesson, Jack told us that he has been questioning whether he should serve a mission. But after the lesson we had with him, he said he is going to go for sure! #miracle

Fire Spinning

Last week we ate dinner at a less actives home. The Fordins. We were able to witness their son spin fire who is not a member of the church! He was really good!

Gratitude!

Since this week is Thanksgiving, I have been studying a lot on Gratitude. I learned that being thankful or grateful for things is different than having gratitude. Gratitude is an action word. it is when we show how thankful we are. Its easy to say things, but actions speak louder than words. If we love God and are thankful for him, we should show him that we really thankful by serving him. It reminded me of a scripture in Mosiah 2:17, by serving others, we are serving God.

I am very grateful for these experiences I have here on my mission and the things that I am learning. I am very grateful for this gospel and for all of you who support and love me! I am also thankful for the food that I have to eat! haha Ive realized that I worry about eating too much! But what a blessing that is that I have too much to eat! When there are people who worry about not having any food to eat. haha well anyways my goal for this holiday season is to be grateful for everything that I have.and also to find ways to serve someone everyday. I hope that all of you can find ways to serve and lift someone up this season!

Love Sister T

Not everyday a couple can say that they make a meal together. It's usually one or the other. But tonight was one of those nice night when my husband and I wanted to make a meal together. Earlier today, Mika and I went food shopping to get a few things for our place. As we were walking around the store, both our eyes went straight for the meat section and both said out loud, "ooh stakes!" We looked at each other sort of giggling and head over to the section where the Ribeye stakes were. I said to Mika as he was looking through the packages of stakes. " That's too funny we thought the same thing...stakes. We definitely have been married way too long to think the same!?!" He smiled and agreed with me as he picked out the stakes for our dinner. We both thought about what we already had at home to cook and what else we needed to get to complete our meal. after going through the store a few times to pick up everything we need. We checked out and headed home. My stomach was grumbling just thinking about dinner. We've arrived home and began to get things ready and prepped to make dinner. I started on making the garlic butter roasted potatoes. Once that was chopped, oiled, seasoned and placed it on a sheet pan, I put it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes. As the potatoes were cooking, I usually would start cooking my carrots around the 12 minutes mark left of the potato cooking time. I would put 1 cup of baby carrots and 1 cup of water into a sauce pan and let that cook for 12-14 minutes until slightly soft. As the carrots are cooked to the preference I want, I would drain it, put it back into the pan, put on low heat and add 2 table spoon of fresh honey, 3 table of brown sugar and 1 cup of unsalted butter. Cook the carrots until the glaze is nice and caramelized. Next I rinsed and cut the asparagus put it a small pan with a 1/2 cup of water and a pinch of salt, sort it to medium heat to cook for 10 minutes. Now all the side dishes are cooked and done within 40 minutes, we can get the Ribeye stakes prepped. Which I'm glad that Mika usually cook the stakes. Marinate the ribeyes in any beef or stake rubs for 40 minutes. Prep the frying pan on medium to high heat. Cook the stakes 3 minutes on each side. My husband likes to cook it with butter and minced garlic to give it its own carmelized glaze. After each side of the stakes has been cooked, take it out of the pan, put it in foil, wrap it up, also wrap it in a towel for it to finish cooking to perfection for 5 minutes. Your meal is done, plate it up and enjoy.