Sophie's Mission 2021-2022

  Hey everyone! Sorry it's been awhile. I moved into the Fontanelle apartments of North Omaha and it's been a wild ride. To catch you up: we moved into an area that hadn't had some success for awhile. Historically their relationship with missionaries, especially sisters, has been the worst in the mission. To top it off, we got bedbugs and I found out I was allergic to them just in time to be introduced to an apostle of the Lord. This week our apartments AC and washing machine broke so we've been living in front of our box fan and not touching the oven unless it's absolutely necessary. It's permanently about 84 degrees in our apartment right now. We had some crazy stories happen. One of the older sisters in our ward called us bawling and told us that her husband had cheated on her. We drove right over and for the next three hours tried to coordinate between the Relief Society and this dear Sister who was really struggling and comfort her because she had no one el...

  Hi everyone!! I'm back and I'm having the time of my life! As in the first time ever that I've experienced this situation lol. On wednesday, I was transfered to the Fontenelle area in Omaha! It's been great except for one thing... A few days ago, I woke up with bug bites everywhere and now we've discovered the apartment here has bed bugs. We had to clean everywhere, wash everything, and have a couple mental breakdowns, but now we're doing better because we are staying with the other sisters in our district (Sister Pace and Sister Hillyer who are awesome). It's been a party and a half with them.  We also went to a mission devotional with Elder Gary E. Stevenson! We all got to shake his hand so he probably saw all the red swollen bug bites on my arms haha... but it was awesome! It was a great spiritual meeting. Then, we had stake conference yesterday so I wasn't really able to get to know the Fontenelle ward itself, but the stake conference was great too...

  Hey everyone! I apologize that it's been so long since I sent a email out. It feels like every week just gets busier and busier.  Recently a lot of my really good friends went home from their mission early. In the beginning of my mission, I used to wonder why they weren't able to shoulder through and let the power of the Atonement enter and change their lives.  The power of Jesus Christ's atoning sacrifice definitely changes so much in our lives and it can give us that new heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). And while I still 200% believe in the power of the Atonement, there's been a couple of days in the past week that have made me realize just how hard a mission is and how hard life is.  The truth is, we ALL are in need of help. When we are put to the test and burdens are heaped onto our souls and backs, we will all eventually need to set our packs down and rest.  That's not weakness, that's life.  God wants us to make use of all of the utilities around us ...

  Hey Guys! OK, I'm going to try to do my best to write a really good email.  We moved a LOT of people this week. It was a lot of fun but sometimes stressful because the people we were moving were very stressed.  A family in our ward let us try fresh unpasteurized milk straight from the cow. And it's absolutely delicious. I might be in love. They gave us a gallon of milk. Mother's day was a blast too!  Also, the highlight was Sonora's baptism. Sonora was someone that we've been teaching for awhile. She's incredibly sweet and has one of the most earnest desires to know the truth of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We've spent several weeks and months helping to answer her questions and focus her attention on Jesus Christ and His restored gospel.  She was doing everything right- studying, praying, keeping the commandments, and having a genuine desire but for the longest time she didn't believe in the Book of mormon or modern prophets. It was a bit of a...

  Hey guys! We had a pretty wild week. Transfers hit and Sister Waite was sent to Nebraska City. Sister Gessel (my new comp) and I have been getting along really well. We have been able to do a lot of service this week AND we presented a lecture on our church at a Hindu temple. It was a blast and I learned a lot about the Hindu culture and religion.  Sorry this email is short! Love you all, Sister Brice

  Hey guys! This week was a whirlwind. We Met a lot of people who had some really heartbreaking life stories. There was a king sized mattress that my comp and I had to move upstairs through the narrowest stairway that I've ever seen. The entire time, pushing and shoving through Nebraska humidity and the wall as it rained down cat hair.  Also, someone we were teaching felt the power of the Holy Ghost and she's going to be baptized on May 7th. Lots of miracles! Love you guys all, Sister Brice

  Not much this week. I found a corgi and we had exchanges. Love you all!!!

  This week has been a fun one! Thank you to everyone who wrote me an email. I will work on responding to everyone (sorry that I am so slow with that). We had zone conference, zone pday, a loaf of homemade bread, and some really cool lessons this week. Something that I found pretty amusing is that over the past two weeks we have found three pretty hype people for the spanish missionaries to start teaching.  The first one (Cruz) was a man who owned the phone number that used to belong to someone in our ward. When we called him, Cruz answered. After a really awkward moment, we asked if he would like a message of hope. In very broken english, he said yes, but not right now. As we continued to text him, we found out that his eleven year old son was going through chemotherapy and he had really been wanting himself and his family to come close to God during this time. When we gave the Spanish elders his number, they called him, ran over and gave his son a blessing, and Cru...

  Sorry guys, I know this isn't a great email. My companion has been super sick this week so I've spent a LOTTTTT of time studying the scriptures.  Lately we've had a lot of people talk to us about works vs grace. As I've been reading in the Old Testament and Doctrine of Covenants, it's become very apparent to me that God expects us to both work and use his grace. It is not one without the other. God's grace comes in every single part of our attempts. General conference was absolutely phenomenal. If you didn't get a chance to watch it, I would encourage you too. I felt the spirit so strongly! Love you all! Sister Brice

  Hello everybody!  Today has been a great day.  Unfortunately, Sister Castillo got transferred. She's finishing her training in a Spanish area in Omaha. We are super excited for her, but it's been a little sad without her. We asked Nick to get baptized and he said yes! I'm not sure if you know who that is, but he is really cool. He came to church for the first time last week, and he said he wanted to make it a priority in his life! We talked to him about what the Priesthood and temples are.  We had a relief society party and invited literally all of the women in our ward, and it was so fun! We met lots of cool people! Fun fact: the relief society (the women's organization in our church) is the largest and oldest women's organization in the world.  Here's a picture with me and my cousin who just went home. I hope you have a great week! Love,  Sister Brice

  Hey everyone! Another transfer has ended. We just found that Sister Castillo is leaving us and our trio is down to a duo again.  We had some cool miracles this week. First of all, sushi. I decided that I was going to make sushi this week. But fish is super expensive and as everyone knows, missionaries are broke. So we thawed out some frozen tilapia, cut up some cucumbers while my Columbian roommate made rice ~Columbian rice~ and avacados with some rice vinegar. We readied the seaweed and prepared to roll our masterpieces. Needless to say, I am not a sushi chef and after about ten minutes, we decided to have sushi 'a la *deconstructe*' in a bowl. It was not good and it was a miracle that none of us died.  Second miracle! Our friend Nero (was that the codename I used before) made it to church! Backstory: Nero looks like the opposite of anyone who would ever be interested in the gospel. He's a huge nearly forty year old man with a man bun and covered in prison tattoos. His...

  Hey everyone! I hope you all are having an amazing day! I've been thinking a lot about how great cows are. We've been doing a sugar fast. It's not going well. We have also been sharing our testimony, and lemme tell you, people are actually hearing us! One of them is called Sonora, a sweet lady that is married with a member. She is so sweet and her love language is cooking, sooooo we are eating pretty well~ We also meet Nicholas, a guy who wanted to change his way of living, so he requested a book of mormon! And he's been reading it and praying about it a lot! He has a very sincere desire to become better and it has been very cool to see the difference that learning about and starting to follow Jesus Christ makes in a person's life. He has a lot of anxiety, and he has had a really hard time coming to church. So please pray for him.  Aaaaanyway, we are healthy, and we hope you are as well! Let us know what you think about our awesome week! May the force be with you....

  I'm sorry that my emails have been pretty sparse lately. It seems that the day flies by and I hardly have time to blink.  This week I turned 21. It's crazy, I don't feel that old. I have less than five months left on my mission.  On Tuesday, we were walking around an apartment complex looking for one of our friends. Sister Waite had an impression that we needed to knock on a specific door. We did so and a man named Zeke opened the door. We came in and shared a very powerful lesson of the Restoration. Zeke has a lot of questions and was very engaged.  On Wednesday, my birthday hence the title, we came back planning to share the restoration lesson. Instead, Zeke greeted us with a thick packet of anti questions he had found off the internet with some of the most specific questions I've ever heard, citing from specific paragraphs in the journal of Discourses (which is a book a prophet wrote a lonnnnngggg time ago). We testified our hearts out that what we had shared an...