Stories from Afar (Volume 18)

And thus another Preparation Day comes to pass. This week has been one full of learning and realizing the things I have learned while out on my mission. I've only been out four months and it's been so much fun! Yes, it is hard and difficult and I can't say that I don't miss my family and friends. But I have come to see that it's worth every second of it.

So the greatest impact on me was actually talking with a 93 year old lady last night. She told us quite a few stories about her life: what she's done and why she's so happy. She was an elementary teacher and she said one of her greatest moments was just being at grocery stores and such and having people come up to her asking her who she was. Being able to see grown-up students of hers helped her know that she had made a difference. She had done so much to help others, even the parents who often came to her for advice. That was so inspiring to me.

For as long as I can remember I've wanted to make a difference and now that I'm on a mission I can say that I'm making more of a difference than I ever have. These last few years I have lost sight of how to do so. But like Sister Atley said; it's because she was so willing to help that people went to her.

We have amazing people in this ward. So many of them are willing to help us missionaries out at a drop of a hat! This is who I want to be when I return! I want to be one who always helps others every chance I get! But I don't have to worry about that right now because that that is what a mission is.
A mission is more than going someplace new. It's more than meeting new people every day! It's ALL about serving!! You are away from family helping others learn about Christ. You teach them how to pray and understand the scriptures. You help them find hope in the Plan of Happiness and God's love for them is reflected through your actions! It's a wonderful day when they are able to recognize that love!!

So I want to let all of you know that you are ALL on your own missions! You may not be away from home or have that mission call. But you have opportunities to serve in your church callings and you have been set apart for that! So I invite you to magnify your callings and help others see the love God has for them! I know as you do so, you will have the Lord's spirit with you and you'll feel His love more than you ever have!

I only have 14 more months on my mission but this week I realized that my mission of service will last through the end of my life. I'll do my best in church callings and helping people whenever I can. I'm also planning on being a mother and that is a mission all on it's own.
So love your mission, whatever it is!

I'm loving mine!

But yeah! Life is great! Time is going by really fast and a cool thing this week is that sister Wallace and I got to teach a lady who only spoke Spanish! I thank Heavenly Father for having her kids there to translate everything for us! What a blessing!

Also this last week it was mission conference and we had Elder Bennet of the 70 visit us. He actually hadn't really prepared anything to talk to us about. He just let us ask questions and he followed the spirit on what to say. He told us that if we weren't prepared to learn then we wouldn't, but if we were then this conference had the potential to change our entire mission! I hoped I was prepared and tried my best to listen to the spirit. He was the real teacher that day!

I can say I learned a lot of things that I didn't know I needed. It was very spiritual and this is what got me started on the service of a missionary. Heavenly Father knew I needed to find the real reason why I am out here and I did! I'm here to help others come closer to Christ and Heavenly Father!! I'm here to help them find His love!

I love being on a mission. The joy of service is real! So don't get discouraged and get to work wherever you are! I love you all and I hope your week goes great as you seek to serve those around you! God loves you and He needs your help to share that love with others!!

Until next week!!!
Sister Becca Steiner

Stories from Afar (Volume 17)

Wow!! Yesterday, I hit my 4 month mark for being out on my mission. Honestly that is crazy for me to think about! Time just goes by so quickly it's weird. This week has gone by in a blur but I think I need to talk about the news that came out on Friday!

Sister Wallace and I counting
down the minutes till P-day

I can now call and text my family! I think it only goes for immediate family but hey! That's better than nothing!! When this news came out, Sister Wallace and I were just starting our Weekly Planning. If you know much about Weekly planning it can be kind of boring but when that email came out we started crying! I know for sure that it was an answer to my companion's prayer! After that I had so much energy that we had to run up and down our staircase 5 times!!! Only then could we focus on our planning. Definitely a crazy day and we've been looking forward to P-day ever since. I'm so happy!!!

Also last Saturday we had exchanges and that was a really cool day. We focused on relying on the spirit and we really had to do so as we didn't have anything scheduled! (Okay so we might have had 1 lesson planned but they cancelled on us)

It started on Friday night as we stayed at Kirtland. In this house there were 6 of us and before bed we were all sitting around movie quoting!!! It was so much fun! Because of my much practice with my family the others quickly realized that they needed to work hard to try to stump me. They did a few times but I loved every moment of it. The others said hearing me go off was almost like watching the actual movie. Hehehe!!! I love movies!!

Exchanges with Sister Olsen

The next day we planned some time to go tracting and also find people using Facebook. Our goal at the beginning of the day was to find 3 new people to teach!! That's a pretty big goal for 1 day and Sister Olsen and I were so surprised and happy and humbled when we actually achieved that goal!
The first place we tracted there was practically nothing. Hardly anyone answered their doors. But the next place we went we found all three people to teach on ONE street!!! Two of them speak mostly Spanish and we've been blessed with ways to teach them even though we don't speak Spanish. (I'm glad I took my semester of Spanish at BYU. It will help) So that was great! I'm super excited!!!

Being a missionary is exhausting but worth it! And this week especially has been a blur. Lots of traveling and driving and teaching! There are a lot of dogs here in Ohio and surprisingly a lot of the people we visit don't have very nice dogs. It's kind of scary but thankfully I like dogs and so far I've been safe. Also cats. There was one old lady who had a young cat named Peaches and during a windy night her door blew open and the cat escaped. We all thought Peaches must have frozen or something because no one could find it. Then a few days later after much prayer we heard that Peaches had taken shelter at one of her neighbor's house and was back safely. So God really does watch over people's pets!!

Well, I can't really remember much about the rest of what happened this week. It just went by so fast. So sorry everyone but yeah, life has been great! I love the Gospel and also the people I've met here. It's hard being in a new area away from the people I knew in Tallmadge but I know that there is a reason why I've been called to Perry and I'm going to do my best to fulfill that role. I love you all! I miss you!!! Yeah, that's my life right now! Until next week!!!

Love, love, love,
Sister Becca Steiner

Random tracting moment ("That's one stuck melon")

Stories from Afar (Volume 16)

Well, I'm in the Perry area. I have one companion by the name of Sister Wallace. She and I are practically the same person! We both love quoting movies and don't like shopping too long! So this transfer is going to be amazing!

Pipe-cleaner dragon; Lore-Binder

Pipe-cleaner dragon; Lore-BinderRight now we live in a town called Painsville.... yeah, it doesn't hurt as bad as it sounds though it can be a little scary at night; not too many lamp posts on the side streets. But the crazy thing is that we are the only set of missionaries in the whole ward and we live at the edge of our boundaries. It takes about 40 minutes to drive the 22 miles to the other side of our area. So pretty much we are going to do A LOT of road trip'n. Huzzah!! I better buy a lot of beef jerky. Haha!!

And they did change how things are at the Visitor Center. There are now only 3 sets of sisters put there and they are there everyday. They don't have an area or anything, just the vc. (Which doesn't sound very appealing) Hopefully during this transfer those Sisters don't go crazy... they just might and I worry this is the fate of us all if they don't change it back. But then again, I only know what the other sisters have told me. So as of right now I don't go up to Kirtland every other day like I normally would. Which is really sad but it is what it is. 

Me on cold day at lake Erie

Okay, so silly story time!! Sister Wallace and I have a Toyota car (similar to a camry but not) and the button thingy on the keys is broken. So we have to press the lock inside the car door before we get out. Well, on a really windy and cold day we accidentally locked our keys in the car! Haha!!! Thankfully the person we had gone to see let us in out of the cold as we called for help. The mission didn't know what to tell us since we are in the far corner. Thus we had to call 911 and send for a police officer. It was quite the adventure and cool to see how the officer got our car open. We had waited for him to arrive for almost an hour and then pop! It was open pretty quickly.

I consider this a blessing because our original plan was to go tracting but the Lord knew how cold it was and made it so we were able to stay inside and warm. I'm so grateful! The Lord really does watch out for us missionaries!!! 

P-Day art

I have seen trees and land and now I have seen Lake Erie frozen almost solid! It actually is really cool! (But cold)

I've met some really great people here and I am excited to get to know them better but as for now I don't have much more to say than that I am happy. I love it up in this windy part of Lake Erie and seeing the giant nuclear plant on the shore (it almost looks like an active volcano without the fire but a bunch of steam) I'm loving all the service we've been able to do. There is a lot of work for the two of us in Perry. I love you all!! Until next week!

Love, love, love,
Sister Becca Steiner

Shore of Lake Erie

Stories from Afar (Volume 15)

If I were to choose one word that would describe this last week I think "Everywhere" would describe it perfectly. This counts physically, emotionally and also temperature-wise; up and down and practically everywhere in between.

So I'll start with where I've been. Last Thursday me and Sister Burnside were able to go to the temple with Shannon and Robin. We drove the two and a half hour drive down to columbus and were able to participate in doing baptisms for the dead. It was really nice to do baptisms again. The smell, the sound and sight of the font really brought me back to family. The times where I went to the temple with Bretton and Bethany, and also when we all went to the Palmyra. (The columbus temple is very similar to that temple; it makes me happy!!!) Also the temperature was in the negatives (Polar Vortex day #2) so we experienced our wet hair turning to ice! Pictures were great! 

On the way back, Robin knew that we wouldn't be able to see that much of Ohio since we are usually up in Kirtland so we took the long way home and I mean the LONG way home!!! We didn't return home until 5:30 when we left Columbus around 1.... FOUR and a HALF HOURS!!!!! I felt really bad that I couldn't do much but sleep. I'm terrible when it comes to long road trips. We were both so tired afterwards that the spirit really pulled out a miracle for us to teach lessons that night. 

Then the next day, (Friday) we drove another hour and a half up to Kirtland (Traffic was really bad) So yeah, I've literally been everywhere.

Me and Shannon

Then with all this emotions have been running high... (Oh yeah, I haven't told you where I'm being transfered to. I'll tell you later hehe) We were so happy to be at the temple yet that thursday night took a tragic turn when we got a phone call from a member we were going to see the next day. We had met with her and her boyfriend once before and we had all become really great friends. Chris wasn't a member and we were really excited to teach him more about the church. Well, she told us that he had passed away and we were all devastated!!! It felt as if a hole had been ripped in my chest and even now my heart still aches for Sister Hardy. They had been dating for over 5 months. Though despite the shock and sorrow Sister Hardy still wanted us to come over for dinner the next day. 

That next day was spent up in Kirtland and it was bittersweet. Sister Burnside and I really needed the support from the other sisters and we got it. Our spirits were lifted a bit. Though when we went to Sister Hardy's that night that is where I truly felt healed. Her testimony of the Plan of Salvation was stunning as she told us what she felt. Her father is teaching Chris about the gospel now and I was able to tell her what I had felt. Chris didn't live in our area so I knew that eventually we would have to pass him onto other missionaries. We just didn't realize it would be so soon and to those who were on the other side of the veil. As we shared stories about Chris we cried, we laughed, we all loved and missed him. The spirit worked on us and helped us know for a surety that everything would be alright. After that appointment I felt I could let myself be happy. The bitterness of death had been swallowed up by Christ and the knowledge of the plan of Salvation. Though the ache of separation and "what if's" still hit me sometimes, I've never been so grateful to have the gospel in my life. 

I cut my companion's hair
(with permission of course)

Whew... crazy week already. But you might have heard about the Polar Vortex that happened last Wednesday and Thursday. During the day it was never warmer than -24 degrees; often being around -30. As soon as you were outside, your hands started to hurt from the bitter winds. Your eyes felt like they were drying up and you could feel your snot freezing when you took deep breaths. I've never been in such cold weather!!! It was exciting!! Then, not 4-5 days later the temperature rose to be 60 degrees!!!! That's a 90 degree difference!!!! I'm just going to accept that Ohio is weird. 

Okay, now I'm going to talk about transfers!!!! I'm LEAVING Tallmadge! I'm leaving Sister Burnside, and the Helbigs, Shannon, Kaleb, and also of course, the Zambranos and Bruce. I'm going to Perry, which is a part of the Kirtland Zone though we will not be serving at Kirtland. I don't know why they've made the changes they have but we don't think they will last more than a transfer. From what I've heard about it, it's a terrible idea. So I'll probably share more next time when I know more details. My new companion is going to be Sister Wallace. She is AMAZING!!!! I already know her from times up in Kirtland and I'm not worried at all. So that's exciting!! I'm just happy that Sister Burnside is staying in Tallmadge. She really wanted to go to the Helbig's Sealing (Which is happening on Saturday, Huzzah!!!) And now she gets to go!!!

TRIO TIME!!!
Sisters Burnside, Steiner and Schlittmaier 

I'm currently in a Trio which has been a lot of fun. Sister Schlittmaier is on the campus of University of Akron so we were able to travel there and teach lessons! You'd think in lessons we would trip over each other but they have all gone smoothly and awesomely! I even had a member tell me how much I've grown since I first arrived because I talked more! I'm becoming more and more confident!! Woohoo!!

What else??? Well, I'm doing great! I've hit some bumps in the road but I'm still loving missionary life and excited to begin a new chapter in Perry. I'm so grateful for the time I've spent in Tallmadge and look forward with hope and faith to one day return to this beautiful place. I love the gospel and the happiness, joy and healing you can receive from trusting in the Lord. 

I have been called and I will answer! I will continue forward; teaching and loving the people I meet, helping them know the truth that I have begun to know for myself. I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK!!!! 

Thus marks the end of a crazy week and sets the stage for a new beginning! Onward!

Sending LOTS of love!!!
Sister Becca Steiner

Kirtland!!!

Sunset at the Johnson Inn

Tracting Burnside Street

Wet hair and cold weather DON'T mix