Sister McKenzie Is Getting TRANSFERRED!!!

We are REALLY going to miss this sister missionary!  We've gotten to know her so well and she is so much fun!  She's always got a smile on her face and is always so friendly and happy!  We wish you the best in all your future areas in your mission...and we will miss you tons!!

McKenzie with her spoonful of Nutella!  Hahaha!  Good thing Sister McKenzie totally understands!

Katelyn was in the shower and wanted to be in the picture...even with her Reindeer onsie on! 

Good thing Sister McKenzie totally understands! 

(In fact, she was here on Christmas Eve when Katelyn and Brooke opened these onsies!)

First Soccer Playoff Game in the Books!!

Katelyn and the Girls GP Soccer Team played Arete Prep today in the first game of the playoffs.  They won 6-2!!  It was a great game and we celebrated by going to In-N-Out as a team afterward.  (The coach said it is a tradition, but I was not aware...)  It was a great game and fun team dinner.

Here's the team doing their chant after the game!

Megan's Letter On 1/30/17 - Miracle Week :)

Hello!! (To everyone that still reads these emails) :) This week flew by so fast! I am so excited to share some experiences!! Lots happened.

 

So Friday was a pretty awesome day. We had interviews with President and Sister Johnson! I love them so much. They always give the best advice and are such huge examples to me. They are the best! While we were waiting for our interviews, an Elder came up to Sister Larson and I and asked me if I knew a Victor. After thinking for a little bit, I instantly said YES. Backing up a little bit: Victor was my very first contact, very first lesson, very first miracle on the mission. We taught him and he wanted to get baptized but then fell into some old habits and fell off the face of the earth. A series of unfortunate events happened to him and there was no way to contact him. So I got transferred out of the DC 2nd area to go to the Montgomery Village area and 6 months later (some of you might remember this story) I randomly saw Victor again while in that area. I was super excited to see him and got his contact information again but then the same type of thing happened for the second time and we lost contact.  Lately I have been thinking a lot about Victor, especially since I am back in the DC 2nd area and so when they asked me if I knew a Victor, I was super excited. The Elders went on to say that they ran into him while they were out contacting one day (I am so glad they chose to talk to EVERYONE) and they said that when they talked to him the first thing Victor asked was if they knew a Sister Griffin or Sister Freeman (Sister Griffin was my companion at the time). The elders said yes! And Victor told them how he was praying for a way to get back in contact with us!! He felt so bad. So they got his email address and ahhh it was a huge miracle. I know Victor will get baptized one day and I know he will change his life around. I am so excited to get in contact with Victor again and I am so grateful for how God puts us exactly where he needs us.

 

Later on Friday night, we had to go to the chapel to pick something up. As we were there, I saw CAROLINE!!! She was having a lesson with the missionaries who are teaching her now! Caroline is someone who we taught a little bit when I was in Bethesda. She was a member referral from a sweet man named Marty. We had to pass her to the Chevy Chase Elders, because she lived out of our boundaries. But when I ran into her she said she was getting baptized on February 11th. That was

such great news!!!!! We got to talk a little bit. I love Caroline she is so awesome.

 

So to conclude our wonderful Friday of exciting news, since we are in a YSA ward, we get to bring our investigators to a little fun game night that the ward puts on! We brought Mary Clare and we were all just talking when I see a familiar face. I realize it was Brian!!!! Brian was someone who we taught a year ago when I was in DC 2nd. He unfortunately lost interest in the gospel, so we stopped teaching him. But he randomly came to game night and he said he was just led there and he felt like he should come. That was another miracle! Friday was such a tender mercy day and it confirmed to me that God truly does know where we need to be to impact other people's lives. He knows the full plan for us. I know that this area is exactly where I need to be (again) and that there are people here that are prepared now.

 

Sunday was such a fabulous day!! Haha, it was wonderfully hectic. So we were so happy, FOUR of our investigators were able to come to church yesterday! It was awesome but the crazy part was getting them there and making sure they all felt welcome. Ha I wish I could describe the struggles but it was quite an eventful morning. Ha but they all came and enjoyed it. One of our investigators that came, Mary Clare, is so solid. She told us that she made a promise with her and God that she would never miss a day of church, unless she was sick. It was so sweet. Later on Sunday a member in the ward invited us over for dinner and she invited Luana as well. Luana came to church with them last week and LOVED it. She said how she was interested in learning more! So we went over for dinner with them and ended up having a super spiritual lesson with Luana afterward. Real quick background on Luana. She is this super sweet and optimistic girl from Brazil. She has a couple friends who are members of the church that she works with. She was telling us how everything always pointed back to this church. She said that there were so many things that came up that led her on this path. She said she felt like something was missing but when she came to church she felt like it was all coming together. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and gave her a copy. She was SO grateful that we gave her a copy. It was so sweet the gratitude she expressed to us. Something cool about the lesson, instead of us inviting her to be baptized, she told us how she wanted to join!!! It was so cute! It was a miracle and we are so excited for her and for her commitment to work towards her special day! A lot of people in the DC 2nd ward speak Portuguese because they are returned missionaries from Brazil, so that has been so great for Luana! The DC 2nd ward is so great and so missionary minded! It is the best!

 

So some of you might know, but all the missionaries around the world had a broadcast and some things were changed in our daily schedule and key indicators!! I attached a picture of what our new schedule looks like but some differences are, we have an extra half hour to get ready in the mornings, we plan for the day in the morning, instead of at night, we only have a half hour for lunch instead of an hour, and we can do companionship study at any time throughout the day. IT IS CRAZY. The schedule is also different for those serving in Africa (they have to be in earlier at night) and Latin America (they have to stay out later at night). But it was a really good broadcast and I'm glad I get to experience these changes! They are so inspired.

Love you all!

Sister Megan Elizabeth Freeman :)

 

Picture with Elder Bennett (General Authority 

that came and spoke to us) from forever ago. 

 

Picture with 2 Apostles and some General Authorities that

came to speak to us a couple weeks ago. (Elder Ballard and Elder Rasband) 



 Interfaith concert our zone got to help out with.

It was so much fun!

 

 

 The Washington DC Temple

 

  Old missionary schedule...

 

 New missionary schedule.

 



 New p day schedule.

 

This picture was sent in a text to Mom this week.  A member (April) from the Bethesda Ward was able to take Sister Larson and Sister Freeman to lunch and Coldstone.  I am always impressed with the members in this mission!  They take such good care of the missionaries!

 

A Saturday Soccer Game :)

Katelyn played awesome in her game against North Phoenix Prep.  They won 5-0!  On won of the goals, Katelyn shot it in but it bounced off the goalie and another girl kicked it in from there!  It was awesome!  It is so fun to watch her play each week!!

 

 

A Gift From The Sisters!

Tonight was my first Missionary Correlation Meeting as a Ward Missionary!  After the meeting, we went on splits with the Sisters.  Sister Buckhannon went with Sister Harper and Sister McKenzie went with me.  We didn't find anyone at home so that was kind of a bummer.  (It was late though, and people don't like to answer their door when it's dark and late.)  We met back up at the church and I took them home.  When we got to their apartment they presented me with my very own name tag!  I joked when I got called to be a ward missionary that it was such a jip that I didn't get a missionary tag.  Well, these cute sisters made me my very own tag!  I guess I'm unofficially official as a Ward Missionary now!  These sisters are so much fun!  I love them to pieces.  Transfers are next week-- I hope neither of them gets transferred out!  I love these sisters so much!

Here I am with my tag!  

Miscellaneous Pictures From Megan's Mission

Last Saturday (1/21/17), I received these pictures of Megan at the Visitors' Center with Taylor Johnson-- from our Stake.  She was out there for the Inauguration and Megan just happened to be there when she went to the Visitors' Center. She sent these via text to me that day and it was so fun to see Megan that morning-- I had been wondering how she was doing due to all the activity with the Inauguration and all the protests and marches-- and I got these pictures!  Thank you Taylor! 

 

 

And then I found this picture on the parents fb page for the mission.  It was taken when they met with Elder Ballard and Elder Rasband a couple of weeks ago!

 



Megan is in the back row of the sisters on the right hand side.

Megan's Letter On 1/23/17 - 15 Months!!

Hey everyone! 
I cannot believe it has already been 15 months! Where has time gone?! These past 15 months have been so great in so many ways! I'm so grateful to be here and I am so excited to make the most out of these last three months!  We had such a great week! Sorry this email might be a little long! 

 I will start out with a little miracle we had. We had about an hour and a half left in our area one day before we had to go to the Visitors' Center and we originally had planned to go and check up on some referrals in our area. We both felt like there was something else better and more productive that we could do for that time of day. So we decided to go contacting! I am sure glad we had that prompting because we were able to meet someone who God had prepared for us! So we decided on going metro contacting since we have a metro right by our apartment. As we were getting on the metro, Sister Larson made eye contact with this guy named Adam. We sat next to Adam and he first starts talking to us and asking some questions. We talked about why we were here in DC and he seemed super excited! We asked him about his religious background and he told us how he was actually searching right now for the truth. He said he was really involved in a church but then started turning away from it because he didn't like how worldly it was getting and how it was conforming to worldly aspects. We shared with him some of our beliefs and he was comforted when we explained to him how no matter what happens in the world, our standards and beliefs will not be lowered. He told us that about ten years ago, missionaries knocked on his families' door and gave them a copy of the Book of Mormon. He said he was the only one in his family that was interested in reading it. He said he was able to read it all the way through and loved how it talked so much about hope and families. Adam's stop was coming up, but he wanted to keep talking so we got off with him and we talked more. He was so blown away and expressed a strong desire to want to learn more and to come to church. He was seriously so prepared. I am so grateful for those missionaries that knocked on their door ten years ago!!! We were so happy that he is YSA and in our area!! 

A few days later, we met up with Adam and brought a member of the ward with us. The lesson went super great. The member shared so many neat and powerful insights! At the beginning, Adam expressed some things that he strongly believes in, and they all went right along with the first lesson of the restoration. It was a miracle. The spirit was so strong. He agreed to getting baptized!! We are super excited for him and how the spirit was able to communicate with us and tell us to go contacting! 

This week at the Visitors Center, I was happy and a bit surprised to answer some phone calls of people who just called in wanting to be baptized... it was so cool. The first woman's name was Gina and she called in and asked what the process was to become a member of the church. I asked her why she wanted to become a member and she said that she plays cards with some ladies that are Mormon and she really looks up to them. We put her on date to be baptized February 12, and then passed on her information to her local missionaries. They were super happy! Another girl that called in was named Chy. So I answered the phone and Chy said in a panic, " WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY. I NEED TO GET BAPTIZED RIGHT NOW. THIS IS URGENT!!" I though it was a prank at first so I asked her some questions and found out she was actually serious. She said how a couple years ago, she had a lot of health issues and was not feeling well. She said missionaries from our church that held the priesthood came over and gave her a priesthood blessing of healing. She said that about a week later she was all better but then moved to Arizona and lost contact with our church and with the missionaries. She said that she has been wondering how she could get back in touch with us and then found this number somewhere and immediately called us. She told me how she has been sort of investigating our church for 4 years and knows it is true and time for her to get baptized. She loved the fact that our church is one big happy family that takes care of one another! :) I asked her to pray about her baptismal date being Feb 11. She agreed, and I passed on her information to the missionaries in her area. They were so excited to receive this elect daughter of God to teach. 

Update on the Shashani family. (They are the ones we tracted into last week!) We went over to teach their family one last time before we passed them to the family ward. When we drove up his two cute little girls were waiting and looking out the window for us!! It was so cute! When we got there, the two girls ran and gave us the sweetest hugs!! The dad had dinner all ready on the table for when we got there. It was so amazing and delicious.  Afterwards, we followed up on what we invited them to do last time we were there, which was to pray. The little 7 year old girl humbly said, "Well, I prayed that my grandma would get better and it made me feel happy and peaceful!" It was so cute. We then proceeded to teach them the Restoration and the spirit was so strong. This family is so special. On Saturday, we had a pass off lesson at the Visitors Center with the missionaries who would be teaching them. They LOVED the idea of temples and how they make it possible for us to be with our families forever! When they came to the Visitors Center they also brought with them a family friend named Suzahn, who is also from Iran. They all expressed how peaceful they felt. We showed them 'Because He Lives' and when it was finished the two little girls said, "CAN WE WATCH IT AGAIN?! That was magical!" Haha it was so cute. They opened up a lot to us and explained how that day had been hard because their grandma had just passed away. We were able to teach them about the Plan of Salvation and show 'Gods Plan for His Families.'  It is so neat how the Lords timing works, how the spirit guided us to them right when they were going through this hard time. They said they felt peaceful. Suzahn said she wanted to meet with missionaries and bring more of this joy into her life. Hormoz, the father, accepted to be baptized when he knew a little bit more. The Sisters who get to teach them are going to be so great! I'm so excited for this special family. I love the Persian culture!! They are so great! 

It is so great being back in DC 2nd. When I was in the area before, we were working with a less active guy named Ivan... AND NOW HE IS SO SOLID. We met with him and his testimony is so solid and AH it is so great to see how much he has grown!! 

We got to go on a few exchanges this week with some of the Sisters in the Visitors' Center. It was so great. I LOVE exchanges. Exchange miracles are real! I would love to talk more about exchanges but this email is getting long! But long story short, prayer never fails to lead us to the elect and sincere seekers of truth. So many people in this mission are ready and have been prepared for years! It is through prayer that God can direct us towards them. 

Love you all

PS: For all those who are wondering about Inauguration Day... unfortunately we did not get to go, but it was SO CRAZY!!!! We could hardly go anywhere without running into protests and riots. BUT we managed to stay safe!! DC is crazy but so amazing! Hope you all have a wonderful day! Pray for our countries leaders!!! 

~ Sister Megan Freeman 

 The Inauguration! A member who went sent us this picture!

 

Elder Fowler (Visitors Center Director) and his wife finished their mission!

 

So we all got to say goodbye. Haha Elder Fowler said he was the only guy we were allowed to hug while being missionaries haha!! He gave us big hugs and kissed all our heads before he left! It was so sweet and so sad!! :( We are going to miss him! He is a sealer in the temple and promised to seal all of us to our eternal companions if we wanted him to!! :) 

 They are like grandparents to all of us!! I'm going to miss them so much!! 

 The Ferrins!!! (He is our new Visitors Center Director!!) :) They are so great!

 

 Sister Kunz! She is so great! This is when we were on EXCHANGES!

 

The Shashani family!!!! The mom went to Iran to be

with their grandma (her mom) before she passed away. 

Twinning with Katelyn!

Katelyn and I had the same idea this morning as we got dressed for church!  We came down the stairs and looked at each other and said, "We're twins!!"  So what did we do?  We took a picture, of course!
Well, several pictures!!

Had to get a selfie!

 

 

This one's my favorite!!

Megan's Letter On 1/16/17 - Meetings with TWO Apostles!!!

Hello everyone! This week was SO busy but SO good at the same time.

So we had transfers on Wednesday and GUESS WHAT?!?!? I got transferred BACK to the DC 2nd Singles ward!!!!!!! That was the first area that I served in! I am so excited! My companion is Sister Larson and she is from California. She is the greatest person ever. We both came out around the same time and so have gotten supper close over this past year so we are SO happy to be together!

On Saturday, both our mission and the DC South Mission got to meet together and hear from and shake the hands of TWO Apostles! It was one of the most amazing and most spiritual experiences I have had in my whole life. The Apostles that came were Elder Rasband and Elder Ballard. They were accompanied by Elder Gong, Elder Bennett, Elder Perkins, and Elder Meurs (General Authorities from the church). We got to hear from each of them. SO COOL. The spirit was SO THICK in the room. When all of them walked in, we all stood up and the spirit was so overwhelming everyone was just in tears. It was such a strong testimony builder. As the opening song, we sang 'Joseph Smiths First Prayer' and it was such a neat experience and the spirit that I felt confirmed my testimony even more of Prophets and Apostles. It was so sweet to hear 500 missionaries singing this hymn. A common theme of the meeting was the Atonement of Jesus Christ and learning about the power and blessings that flow into our lives as we think of what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane. Elder Rasband said, "When I get tired, I picture my Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane." This can give us the strength we need. He went on to say that that is why Christ LOVES it when we repent, because we are taking advantage of what He did in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus Christ took the sins of all those who would repent! Elder Rasband also said that today was a very unique day where we get to hear from two Apostles and all of our area 70!! So Sister Larson and I sat on the front row, and as the Apostles and General Authorities left the room, we all stood and waited for them to leave the room and Elder Ballard came up to us and said, "You keep working hard!" and then touched my arm!!! Ah so cool. This meeting was so amazing and renewed our fire!! One of my favorite things that was said was, "When you understand the worth of souls, you understand what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane."

Sunday was an another amazing day. So just a couple months ago, the FIRST YSA Stake on the East Coast was formed!!!!!! So on Sunday we got to go to the YSA Stake Conference since we serve in the DC 2nd Singles Ward. Since it is the first YSA Stake, Elder Rasband AND Elder Ballard AND Elder Gong also came to attend and speak at this meeting. Here was what was the coolest thing ever... so we brought one of our investigators to the Stake Conference, Mary Clare and somehow we were at the right place at the right time and Mary Clare GOT TO MEET ELDER BALLARD AND SHAKE HIS HAND!! Mary Clare had the hugest smile on her face. She told Elder Ballard she is getting baptized on February 12th and he smiled and said, "Yes I know and can tell you are ready" and then he went on to say, "You are going to love this church. It is true." It was so cute! Mary Clare said she felt the sprit and was so happy to shake the hand of an Apostle of the church. That was the coolest thing ever! I wish all of our investigators could shake the hands of an Apostle!!!

Saturday and Sunday was such a neat opportunity!!

To end, I just want to share a quick miracle we experienced this week! So we were out tracting one day and we met this SUPER nice family from Iran. They invited us right in and were anxious to hear the message that we had. We taught them and their two adorable girls about prayers and how we can communicate with God. They were so happy and scheduled a return appointment. We are excited to pass them to a family ward and for them to attend church and be taught more from the missionaries! They were so kind and it made my day to meet this family!

Love you all!!

 Sister Larson and I.

Elder Rasband!! We got to shake all their hands at the beginning of the meeting!

Sunday Snoozes!

We got CAUGHT!!  I'm not sure who took this picture...I think it was Marilyn!  She forwarded it to Bill and it came over on my phone!!  It felt good to take a nap and Brooke made herself comfy on top of me!  (In her Yeti jammies! Nice and WARM!!)

 

Meanwhile, Katelyn was working on a really cool colored pencil picture. 

She was drawing a picture of a girl and it took her all afternoon to do the hair.  It looks good! 

I should get a picture of the final piece!

Katelyn's Soccer Game V. Odyssey with Grandma and Grandpa!

We had fun today going to Katelyn's game!  We played Odyssey and WON 4-0!  They are having a great season!  We've won every game except for the first one v. Anthem and that one was tied, so technically we are undefeated!  (Also, we beat them when we played them a second time!!)  Here are some cool pictures of Katelyn all over that field!  She had a great game with tons of assists!

 

 

 Loyal fans braving the cold!

 

Going for that goal...

...man she tried hard to boot one in!

Date Night with Marilyn and Jim at the Temple!

It's been so fun to have Marilyn and Jim here staying with us!  Bill got off work early and we went and did a 3:00 session at the Temple!  It was a beautiful session.  It's always so nice to be inside the temple and to feel the peace and sweetness of that holy place!  After the session, we got these pictures below and we went and got a yummy dinner at Kneaders.  It was a fun night!

 

I LOVE these flowers!  They look so happy with all the rain we've had, I'm sure!

Megan's Letter On -1/9/17 - Amazing Week!

Hi everyone! This week was AMAZING! 

We had interviews with President and Sister Johnson this week! They went super great! I love them so much. They are incredible examples to me. During our interview, President Johnson asked if I would accept the calling to serve as a Sister Training Leader! I gladly accepted and am super excited for that opportunity and to get to know some of the Sisters better and to be able to learn from them. 

I think I am going to start out with a little miracle we had this week! One of the things Sister Haertling and I fasted for was for a miracle in the Bethesda area. Later in church one of the members came up to us and told us about a friend they had that might be interested in learning more. They gave us his address and we went over later that afternoon. Before we went over we tried to prepare a door approach that would help him know that we had a message specifically for him. He is a single dad and has two little boys. We prepared a thought for his family if he were to actually let us in. We went to the door, hoping that he was prepared at the time and that he would be willing to learn more. When he opened the door and asked what brought us to his house we said, "We are the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and we have a message that WE KNOW will bless you and your families' life. Is there a time that we could come and share that with you?". He smiled really big at us and said, "Perfect I'd love to hear about it!". He told us he had to leave soon, but he wanted to hear our message. Something that we have really been working on lately is stating our purpose more clearly when we go to visit people. Sometimes it's easy to just visit and then people don't understand that our purpose is to invite and bring people closer to Christ through faith, baptism, recieving the gift of the holy ghost and enduring to the end. So the first thing he asked us was, "So in a 30 second sound-bite, what is your purpose as missionaries". Sister Haertling and I were just smiling really big and told him what it was and he asked us EVERY single question to what we had prepared. He gave us his information and told us he wants us to come back when his kids are home. So we are going over again next week and the family who referred them are going to join! I really hope I stay in the Bethesda area! We have transfers on Wednesday! It was neat to see the blessings from that fast. I know that it is because and through  the Atonement of Jesus Christ that blessings from fasting can come to pass. I am so grateful for the sacrifice Christ made so that we can grow and receive the blessings of the gospel. I know that God has been preparing this special family to receive the restored gospel.

One of our investigators named Mary that I mentioned a couple weeks ago invited us and her neighbors, who are members in the Bethesda ward, over for dinner! It was so lovely! We had a wonderful discussion about the Book of Mormon and modern day revelation. We talked a lot about how God reveals His truth in every time period. It was so lovely and Mary committed to coming to church! Yay!

Update on Amanda, the lady I am teaching online at the Visitors' Center. So Amanda got baptized in November, and then her daughter got baptized in December, and GUESS WHAT! Amanda's husband who has been super against the church for a while had a spiritual experience with the missionaries and is getting baptized January 28! Huge miracle. After he gets baptized their whole family will have received the restored gospel of Jesus Christ all from Amanda coming onto mormon.org. I am so proud of this family and I  know that this gospel blesses families so much

Well that is pretty much everything that happened this week! I wish I could write more but I can't wait to hear from you and all your fun experiences as well! Stay warm!

Sister Megan Freeman

We all wore stripes!

SISTER URBINA! She is from Honduras. 

 

All the sisters got to go to the mission home today and Sister Shin made Korean BBQ!! 

 

 Kentlands District bowling activity...

 

Kentlands District