something about miracles

Hey Y'all, 

This week was pretty good. We got to bell ring for salvation's army and it was so much fun. Normally I am pretty shy about singing in front of people but my companion has an amazing voice. So we sang carols while we were bell ringing. It was so much fun and so many people thanked us and told us that our singing made them smile or made their day. It also helped give us a boost of confidence to talk with everyone. 

We do other service at this catholic church in downtown Ypsi. They buy food to hand out to people that need it and they take donations. Well this week someone donated like 15 big boxes of girl scout cookies. So we got to take home a couple of boxes. It was another good boost. 

We also received some service this week as our car battery has been dying a lot because the tiwi is staying on all the time rather than just when we are driving. We had some of the nicest people help us jump our car and come to our rescue. Don't worry we now just unplug the tiwi when we are not driving so its no longer a problem. 

And Last but not least. This week as I finished the Book of Mormon Moroni 10:29-30  made me really happy. I love that the Lord has made it so easy for us this Christmas season to lay hold on every good gift as we serve others and are served by others. #LightTheWorld is an amazing way to give service this season! Let me know of the miracles y'all witness as you do this! 

Xoxo Sister Witt

Cookie Isle Miracles

Hey Y'all, 

I have been moved to Ypsilanti, which is pretty far from every other area I have had on my mission but it is so amazing! The area was opened up a transfer ago so even though Sister Doxey has been here for a transfer we are still figuring everything out together. She has been out for 9 months and is from Roy, Utah. She has an amazing love for the Book of Mormon and is so so so good at talking with everyone. One of our first days together last week we went store contacting because it was dark and rainy. She walked straight to the cookie isle and planted herself in between the Oreos and the chocolate chip cookies. For a second she just stood there and I was pretty confused. There was no one in the cookie isle and we had come there to talk with people. Well sure enough people started to flock to the cookies one by one. Funny story EVERYONE IN THE COOKIE ISLE IS HAPPY! How could you not be when you are surrounded by cookies? We talked to like 6 people in that isle and 4 of them were willing to meet and gave us their information. It was amazing, and yes we did end up buying some cookies...

Another miracle, so this week it has been super rainy here in MI. But during weekly planning last week we decided we wanted to blow it up and start walking through apartment complexes. We had never done that before but the elders in our ward have seen a lot of success doing it so we thought if they could we could too. Well Saturday was they day we really stuck to our plan and were going to be out weather it was raining or not. We drove to the Providence apartments and said a prayer. As we walked around it was desolate... no one was out... (only crazy people would be walking around outside in the middle of a downpour.) Marcus walked out to take his trash out and we talked to him about the Book of Mormon. After hearing our testimonies about it he said he would like to learn more and set up an appointment for Sunday! THAT NEVER HAPPENS! Then we kept walking though and talked to this young woman named Samantha. She was interested too and asked if we could meet that day! When we met with her she accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon and prayed to know if it was true. She said she wants to do some more reading before she sets up another time but still, she said yes! 

I hope you are all able to see miracles this week espicaly with Thanksgiving coming up! We have so much to be thankful for! 

Love Sister Witt

Miracles

Hey Y'all, 

Sorry I have been the worst at writing group emails. The work has been pretty slow here in Rochester East and I haven't really known what to email about. Thank you for all the love you sent to Sister Korimi. She got a package from her parents this week and was so so so happy about it. She is doing better! This week we saw some pretty cool miracles! 

Miracle #1 

On Wednesday we stayed in our apartment all day and on Thursday I had finally had enough staring at the walls so we went out kinda late in the afternoon. We went through the drive through at Tim Horton's to get some hot chocolate before going to contact and I was able to talk to the first person, Liz! She works there and was so so nice! She gave us her number and everything. We continued to talk with everyone we saw and by the end of the night, even though we didn't have very much time to find and I was loosing my voice so it was hard to bare testimony, we had talked to 10 people!!!!!

Miracle #2

Our mission has been working on teaching the members the missionary lessons and asking for referrals. We haven't personally seen any success come from this until this week. The Elders taught our EQP and his family the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ a couple weeks ago and they said that one of their neighbors might be interested, well they live on our side of the ward and we have been trying to help them invite their friend to learn more. At the ward Trunk or Treat we were able to talk to him and his wife and they said that they would invite their neighbor Joanne over for a treat and a message on Sunday night. Last night we went over and were able to teach Joanne the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The spirit was so strong in their house, when we shared the first vision and our testimonies she had tears in her eyes and when we invited her to learn more she accepted. 

Miracle #3

We went to dinner at our Relief Society presidents house this week and we were really nervous, because she has been kinda hard to work with. But dinner went so well and we had totally misjudged her. When we asked her family who they knew who could use the gospel they had some neighbors in mind. They had tried to share the gospel with them a couple of different times but said that it might be best coming from us. We went to talk to their friends after dinner but they weren't home. Don't worry we will try again. 

Miracle #4

I was reading the sctiptures this week and came across a verse that I think was just added into the Book of Alma, because in all my years I swear I have never read it. 

Alma 37:44 For behold, it is as easy to give heed to the word of Christ, which will point to you a straight course to eternal bliss, as it was for our fathers to give heed to this compass, which would point unto them a straight course to the promised land.

This was such an answer to many many many prayers. Sometimes I think that there has to be some great thing that we do like cut off the arms of all the bad guys, or be the only one left to bury the plates, or go and convert all the Lamenites or build a ship, in order to make it to our 'promise land'. But right here Alma tells Helaman that all you have to do is 'give heed to the word of Christ.' I love how the last time our Prophet spoke to us this was his council! Read the Book of Mormon every day. I know that as we do that we will become the people that God wants us to be and that we will be on the right path back to Him!

I love you all! 

Love Sister Witt

Hey Y'all

Hey Y'all, 

There isn't much to report on for this week, our miracle Andrea, from last week has decided to stop meeting with us because she has some health challenges she would like to focus on at the moment. We are constantly talking to everyone, praying and working hard to find someone to teach. If any of you have friends that live in Rochester it would be awful nice if you sent them is as a referral. We have been praying for those too. Sister Korimi and I are working on blowing it up and changing things all the time. We want to be the best missionaries the Lord has to offer. Sometimes it gets pretty discouraging, especially for Sister Korimi. She is a fresh missionary and hasn't had the opportunity to witness a baptism on her mission. She is from India and misses her home and family dearly. When we find someone to teach she gets filled with so much joy but over the last couple of weeks it has been kinda hard for her. That is why I am writing you an email this week even though nothing is currently happening or no huge miracles happened. Sister Korimi needs some love in her life, for us as missionaries love comes in the form of letters. I don't know what callings y'all hold, but I know some of you are bound to work in primary or at least have ties to it. It would mean so much to me if she could get some letters. Ask anyone you know who has 5 min of spare time to write her a little note. I will tell her story below so you know more about her but I'm sure this will lift our spirits and help us see more miracles in Rochester East. 

So let me tell you a little bit about my miracle of a companion Sister Manusha Korimi. She is from Hyderabad, India. She is a convert to the church and in her words is 'only 5 years old in the gospel'. When she does something she does it with her whole heart. In 2006 her cousins were friends with a less active member in India who eventually introduced them to the church. They gave up Hinduism and were baptized. She went over for a sleep over at their house shortly after and they taught her the Plan of Salvation. She says she felt so much peace in knowing that she could be with her family 'even after the death'. She went home and told her mom. Eventually her mom and her aunt talked and her mom boxed up all the Hindu Gods in their house in threw them out. Due to some family differences they became disconnected for the next 6 years. But in 2012 their family was reunited with their cousins and they decided to meet with the missionaries. Sister Korimi, her mom and her only brother Sunny, were all ready and willing to be baptized. But her dad was not. They decided to wait and keep meeting with the missionaries until her dad was ready. One day while the missionaries were teaching their family the word of wisdom, her dad suddenly stopped the missionaries. He told them that his son made him promise to not drink, even at parties years ago, and because the missionaries were asking him to do the same thing he was willing to get baptized. He said 'Okay, we will be baptized this Sunday.' The rest of them were completely shocked and joyful at the decision her dad had made. They did indeed get baptized that Sunday. Then Sister Korimi wanted to serve a mission. Her dad said no, so she enrolled in BYU instead to pursue her masters in electrical and computer engineering. There she took missionary deferment and was called to the MDM. She hasn;t seen her family or her home country in over a year. But her missionary service is blessing them so much! Her dad is growing in faith and her mom is staying steadfast. 

Love Sister Witt

664 n main #204 

Rochester MI 48307 

God is so good

Hey Y'all, 

We got transfer calls this week and we are both staying! I am so happy because we finally started to see some miracles over here in Rochester East.

The miracle of this week is Andrea. The LO elders had a baptism on Saturday and we really wanted to go. Well actually we wanted to go to the one of Ashley Putnam in Flint because I taught her but that was a vain desire because it was all about me wanting to get to the baptism. The moment we changed our thinking from I want to get to a baptism to who could benefit from seeing a baptism the miracles started happening. We didn't have anyone coming on Saturday morning and felt prompted to go to a certain neighborhood and walk around. Which we never do! We were praying in our hearts that people would be out, and they were we were able to talk to a lot of people in a short amount of time but still no one wanted to come to the baptism. Well at about 12 we drove over to the church and decided to park there and walk around. We were walking on the trail across from the church and talked to 2 more people. both not interested. Now its about 12:45 and we are almost ready to give up. I thought about calling Andrea and inviting her even though when we invited her to the one in Flint she said no. But this one was a lot closer so maybe she would say yes. Well she didn't answer so we walked back to the car feeling upset. Literally right as I put the car in reverse to back out and go home, Andrea calls. I put the car in park so quick and answered. She sounded so excited to go to the baptism but it was already 1:05 so she was going to be late but we said that didn't matter. Anyway she walked in right as we were going into the room with the font to watch Shane be baptized. She loved it and said that she felt peaceful there. We watched the restoration as he was getting ready and weren't able to finish it because he was too fast. Well we dropped her off a copy for her birthday yesterday and she was so excited about it. We were able to give her a church tour after the baptism and she is excited to do her family history on today. This showed me that God is so so so good! He is willing to help us the moment we begin to turn outward and focus on others. I love the gospel so much! 

Love sister Witt

no email

no email

Service Miracles

Hey Y'all, 

I hope you have had a good week! Rochester East continues to be a fairly slow area. We are talking to everyone and trying to find those who have been prepared of the Lord. We have faith that they are just around the corner. Thank you all for the prayers you have been sending our way. We feel it and the strength that comes from those we love at home. 

Last week during weekly planning both Sister Korimi and I felt strongly that we needed to change the work by doing more service. We thought that was an odd idea because we serve at 2 really awesome places but we made plans to talk to more people about service opportunities. Right after planning was over we got a call from the Hills (the senior missionaries over service) asking us to help with a service on Monday. How cool prayer answered, right? Well last Monday we got to go to Romeo to help hand out shave ice at the Peach Festival. It was so much fun. Our mission bought a shave ice machine and we just hand it out for free where ever we can to get people to notice the church. The number of referrals spikes up in the areas that they have been going to. It was so much fun! We were right in the middle of the festival on the road where the parade was so we got to see it all. Everyone was so nice and we got to talk to a lot of people. It reminded me of Heber's Fair days. We went throughout our week thinking our prayer had been answered and happy because of Shave ice. On Friday of this week we got a call from the Hills again telling us that the 2 places we serve at called them and said they no longer needed us to come in as volunteers. We were crushed. They didn't say why they didn't need our service any more. And we cried a little about it because we had just started making relationships with the other people who served there. Anyway we had been talking to people and had come up with 3 places to serve at. What a tender mercies! The Lord always provides a way for us! 

xoxo Sister Witt

Faith and Works

Hey Y'all, 

Last week I promised I would tell you more about our visit from Elder Renlund, It preparation he and his wife asked us to read 3 talks: 'Fourth floor Last Door', 'Joy and Spiritual Survival', and 'The Future or your Faith is not by Chance but by Choice." These talks are absolutely amazing and I would defiantly suggest that you go back and read them if you have the time. Each talk focuses on faith and how we use our agency. Some of my favorite quotes from them (in no particular order) are:

-"Your faith is either growing stronger or becoming weaker"

-"Your faith did not begin at birth, and it will not end at death"

-"Each of us has likely had times when distress, anguish, and despair almost consumed us. Yet we are here to have joy?"

-"If we focus on the joy that will come to us, or to those we love, what can we endure that presently seems overwhelming, painful, scary, unfair or simply impossible?"

-"The scriptures teach us that through faith the worlds were framed, waters were parted, dead were raised, and rivers and mountains were moved from their course"

-"2 missionaries had faith, they were committed. They had the attitude that if no one listened to their message it would not be because they had not given their best effort... They had faith and were willing to work"

Elder Renlund talked to us about how we need to strengthen our faith to see these miracles and then we need to work like it all depended on us. Our efforts and action both in the + side. 

Other things that happened this week was stake conference. Elder Bennett came and talked about President Monsons last talk in April conference. He tells us to read the BoM everyday. I know that if we do this we will have power to meet lifes challenges! Fun fact I have stayed in this stake my whole mission! So when we has stake conference I got to see everyone from the Flint and Lapeer wards. Including Sebastian! It was so good to see all of those people that I love so much! And to see the lives that my faith has touched even if it was a year ago.

I love you all so much! Have an amazing week!

Love Sister Witt

​​​

More Michigan Miracles

Hey Y'all

This week we had some amazing opportunities to hear form a general authorities! Elder Renlund of the 12 apostles and his wife, Elder Bennett, Elder Dunnigan of the 70's and their wives came to visit our mission. We had an inspired meeting on Saturday morning. Elder Renlund talked about how missionary work and success is all about our agency and growing where we are to become what we want to become. He drew a graph with 4 sections. One side was our attitude and the other was our effort. He labeled each square: 1 -Attitude +Effort, 2 +Attitude +Effort, 3-Attitude -Effort, 4 +Attitude -Effort. He talked about how in order to move to the box we all want to be in, +Attitude +Effort, we have to know which we are starting in and then use our agency to change. I thought this was a wonderful example for everyone, not just missionaries. I will include a picture just in case I didn't explain it very well. 

Sister Korimi and I have been talking about blowing it up a lot lately, and everything that could mean. We used to think that it was just talking about where we go but we realized after the meeting on Saturday we discovered that it also covers how we share our testimonies. We discovered that we were becoming rather wrote in our testimonies and that the spirit could be there much stronger if we meeted our testimonies to every person. We even practiced doing and spt about the word of wisdom. After that we went out and tried it on a few people we felt prompted to! Yes it was so awkward the first time. We evaluated and revised, but it was amazing to see the courage my companion has in sharing the gospel and blowing it up. Sunday night we were walking through the park and there was this Muslim family playing with the ducks. I typically walk right past people of other faiths because I don't feel like they will be intrested. But S.Korimi is so much braver that I. She walked right up to them and bore a powerful testimony about families. They said they had some time to talk right then. As we sat and talked with them, really trying to listen to what they were saying, the Book of Mormon kept popping into my mind. I shared my testimony of that and how it plainly testifies of Christ. I offered them a copy and they asked if we had one in their language. We didn't have one on us but promised that we could get them one and showed them how to download the app so they could be looking at it right away. We gave them our card and Ali (the father) asked if they would 'stick out' if they came to church. It was a miracle for sure!! We told them 'of course not' and that everyone is welcome. I hope they come to church! 

Love sister Witt

I ran out of time but will talk more about our meetings next week! Stay tuned! 

Adhbuthalu- Another Word for Miracles

Hey Y'all

This is Sister Witt and Sister Korimi coming at you from Rochester East! What can I tell you about sister Korimi, she is from India and when she was 19 her family converted to the church! She knows 3 languages and has taught me a couple phrases in Telugu! She has been on her mission for 3 months and is has so much faith! I am so beyond excited to learn all I can from her. 

 We have seen so many miracles this week! Also we had some really hard trials. One of our first days together this young man named Cameron ran up to us on the trail and asked if we could meet later that week. He said he had been out to UT and met missionaries out there but had never seen any of us where he is from. He seemed really excited and we set up a time to meet on Friday. When we met with him on Friday something didn't feel right and about halfway through sharing the Restoration of the Gospel with him he started to raise so many objections. He was pulling out verse after verse of the bible to try and disprove the Book of Mormon. I was so upset. He had just approached us to bash. Well eventually we finished out 'lesson'. I was so upset, the thoughts in my head were 'How unChristlike is that? This guy literally sought us out to fight with us and pretend like he is telling us the truth. How grateful I am to be in a religion that doesn't do anything like that!' S.Korimi was wonderful during the lesson! She had so many scriptures memorized to show him why we believe how we do. But just like Jobe from last week Cameron has his agency, but it still boils my better that he sought us our just to bash us, he went to UT to 'teach people why the mormons are wrong' what a punk.

Here are some even bigger miracles! We also got 3 media referrals this week! That is a HUGE MIRACLE! I have never received a media referral my whole mission! We are currently teaching one of the referrals, Denise, and we are still trying to get in contact with the other 2! 

I have started the Book of Mormon again and I just want to let you all know how true it really is! I love that book so much and the converting power it has in our hearts and in our lives! I have felt the peace and comfort it brings as I read it! There is nothing quite like the spirit or energy that enters into my life after I read even just a verse of Scripture! I know the Book of Mormon is true! I know y'all know it is true! Thank you all for being such great examples to me! have a blessed week! But more importantly help someone else have a blessed week! 

Love Sister Witt

664 n Main #204

Rochester MI, 48307

These are old pictures from when President Uchtdorf came. We just got them! 

Miracles none the less

Hey Y'all, 

I cannot believe it is already August! Time flies so fast out here when you are having fun. S.Reheis and I are doing well in Rochester. This place is so different from Flint. Its probs the wealthiest area in our mission, or close to it. I hope you have had a good week and summer! Not much is happening here but boy was this week kinda crazy. Including the miracle below, we also went to Detroit to so the service project we did last year again. Life Remodeled. They pick a neighbor hood or neighborhoods in the ghetto of Detroit and go in to clean up the place! It is actually so cool. We were there on Thursday and got to clean up a number of abandoned houses. Our whole mission did it, each zone of different days and so there were tons of missionaries there. It is an awesome way to get the churches name out there! 

Okay so our miracle this week is kinda a long sad story. His name is Jobe, we found him on Tuesday approx. 5 days after he moved into town. I have been praying to find the elect and that they will specifically have some kind of animal with them. (Because Sister Reheis loves animals so we stop every one we see) Well Jobe had a ferret which was new, so we went over to talk to him. He has had a really hard life, both of his parents died 4 years ago in a house fire along with his little brother, and he moved to the US after that. He told us about how he was atheist but how he has seen so many signs and good things that point him to believe that there is a God, despite his knowledge otherwise. We talked with him about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and bore testimony about the Book of Mormon. We promised him that if he read it he would be able to know God and Christ more. He took a copy and we set up another appointment for Saturday. When we met up with him on Sat he had done some good and bad research about the church and had 101 questions about Kolob and planets and all these other obscure things. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and used lots of Book of Mormon references to teach. (we backed those up with our personal testimonies again) We invited him to church and he said he would think about it. Well guess what?!?! He came to church! 45 min early! He had a really good time at church and even bore his testimony in Sacrament meeting. The bore his testimony on how meeting us was a miracle. When we called him Sunday evening he opened up to us about a lot of other scary stuff that happened in his past and how he didn't understand why God, if He really loved him, would allow those kind of things to happen. We scheduled an appointment for Monday and told him we would study it out more from his perspective and answer him then. Well we went contacting in the park after that and at one point sat down on a bench. Jobes question was ringing in my mind the whole time we were out, as I sat on the bench the words in JSH rang in my head. "12 Never did any passage of scripture [or question from investigator] come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible.

13 At length I came to the conclusion that I must either remain in darkness and confusion, or else I must do as James directs, that is, ask of God. I at length came to the determination to “ask of God,” concluding that if he gave wisdom to them that lacked wisdom, and would give liberally, and not upbraid, I might venture."

I thought of the first vision and literally could not hold myself back from reciting it quietly to myself. I realized that no matter the amount of answers or words or scriptures I threw at Jobe, it would be his choice. He needed to pray for himself. That's what Joseph did, that's what I did, that's what we ask everyone to do. We talked about that as a companionship and decided that is what we were going to focus on in our meeting with him today. Well late last night he texted a lot of mean things and dropped us. But he is still my miracle of the week because he helped me strengthen my faith in a loving Heavenly Father. 

I hope you all have wonderful weeks! 

Love Sister Witt

Happy Pioneer Day

Hey y'all, 

This week was so good! Happy Pioneer day! I am so grateful for all the pioneers who paved the way for us today! Yesterday at church this stat from someones talk blew my mind! It took 90ish days for the pioneers to cross the plains and about 70 thousand pioneers made this trek. Today in about 90 days missionaries around the world baptize 70 thousand people. Isn't that amazing! Gosh I am so grateful that I get to be a small part of this great work!

Okay can I tell you all of the miracles that happened this Friday! Friday after weekly planning we were so pumped to go work in our area. Because of p-day, zone conference, exchanges, and my head we hadn't gotten much time to work in our area yet. We rushed from weekly planning to a member finding visit which went really well. The East's are recent converts and they loved getting to learn about the Restoration of the Gospel of Christ again from the missionaries. Then after that we walked around in their area and it was so hot! We decided to go get a frozen hot chocolate to cool down. Well we walked into Bigbys and there was the biggest line ever! (I guess everyone in Rochester had the same idea we did) We talked to a couple of the people around us and made some texts and calls while we waited. The woman in front of us paid for our drinks! She said she knew a member who's son was on a mission and she always likes to serve the missionaries when she sees them, because this member family has done so much for her. The cashier was also one of the nicest people I have ever met. We were the last in the long line so we got a minute to talk to him. He told us about how he lived in Utah and how great of a job we are doing. He said we brought a smile to his day! We had dinner with a member family they were so sweet and then we went to a lesson at the park where we regularly go contacting. On our way to meet up with Dave this guy on a bike rode up to us and stopped. He asked if we were on our way to an appointment. We replied yes but we could meet with him the next morning. He agreed and we swapped information. (We did meet with him the following morning and it went really well!) Dave our miracle from the last couple of weeks just keeps going. He brought his friend and his girlfriend to his lesson. It went really well. While we were walking with them to the spot we were meeting I was answering some of Dave's questions from what he read in the Book of Mormon. When we sat down his girlfriend Anila pointed at the Book of Mormon I was holding and asked me if she could have one of 'those books' too. It was an awesome lesson! The spirit was so strong and we really taught in unity as a companionship! 

I hope y'all are able to see the miracles! I love you all so much! 

Love Sister Witt

week 51 and week 49 in MDM- Best Birthday Present Ever

Hey Y'all, 

I hope you had a fantastic week! I am now serving in Rochester Hills. It is an awesome ward the boundaries are about half the size of Flint, but so far I love it here. My new companion is Sister Reheis from Arizona. She has been out for 6 months and has had more companions that I have. We have been working hard to find new investigators because we reopened an area so we had none when we got here. We have been walking trails to talk to people and mostly everyone is nice but no one wants to meet. Until Dave, we were walking on the trail near our house and we had gone pretty far down. We felt like we had been far enough so we turned around and started to head back home. We got to the only cross walk and there were these two men standing there waiting for the light to turn green. One of them is also newer to the area and the other was showing him around. We introduced ourselves and started to walk with them. At first their hearts were really hard and they didn't want to talk much about church, but as we walked with them their hearts softened and one of them gave us his number. The other one Jim said he wasn't interested but I am positive his view of Mormons has changed forever. 

Oh I am sure you are all intrigued about what happened on Saturday. Well we had a special missionary meeting. They told us all to dress nice and show up and hour and a half early. We thought it was super weird but we followed as told and when we go there the chapel was set up with seats reserved for all the missionaries in our mission. We found ours and sat down. Everyone else reverently filed into the chapel and I started to read my Book of Mormon. I was reading in the best part of Alma where all the missionary work is happening. My apt 410 sisters walked in and all gave me hugs. Then the assistants announced that we were having a visiting general authority. We all pretty much figured it out by that point. They told us that President Uchtdorf and his family would be arriving and to continue preparing ourselves reverently for this amazing experience. We all couldn't believe it! They moved us into the gym to set us up for a picture and then he walked in. His smile was so bright and Sister Uchtdorf was right beside him. We all got to shake his hand when we were walking into the chapel. During the meeting Sister Uchtdorf told us that we are like fireflies spreading light where the world needs it the most. She told us that we are exactly where we need to be to do the most good. Which was what I needed to hear being in a new area, with a new comp feeling lost. President Uchtdorf left a blessing on our families back home. He told us to continue repenting. He was so sweet. President has been pushing repentance for the small things a lot the last couple of transfers so I am sure it made him extra happy. President Uchtdorf told us that our efforts are not wasted. Even if no on will listen to us, even if everyone is dropping us, even if we just feel like we are planting seeds. He told us about his wife's conversion story and how grateful he is forever for those missionaries that when to the 4th floor last door. I know that he is called of God. He has the most amazing spirit about him! I am so grateful that Christs Church is restored to the earth and that His Priesthood power is here too! 

Love Sister Witt 

week 50 and week 48 in MDM- "Firework or Gunshot"

Hey Y'all, 

Transfer call results are in and Sister Witt is leaving Flint. It will be hard to leave this place because I love it so much but I am so excited to see what the Lord has in store for me in my new area. I won't find out where I am going until tomorrow so stay tuned.

So I will explain my subject line now. We live in the hood, well actually our apartment is in a fairly safe place but with all the fireworks going off sometimes it sounds like guns. At the beginning of the week there were just a couple random fire works but by the end there were so many. We all slept in the living room because we knew someone was going to be transferred and everything would be dead silent and Sister Rice or Sister Craig would hear a firework and ask if it was a gunshot. It was so funny. Don't worry 99.9% of the time we think they are fireworks. 

My favorite miracle this week comes from establishing relationships. I never knew what that meant but President Cleveland would always talk about how we are building relationships everywhere we go. Well there is this one Meijer (grocery store) we keep going to in Burton to go contacting. We always buy a few things and talk to people throughout the store while doing it. We have never found much success there but we always get drawn back. Eventually we became friends with Allen the door greeter. He is a sweet heart, he noticed us coming in all the time. He would ask us questions about the church and we would answer them and offer to share more. He never found time to meet with us but when I told him I was leaving he was so sad. He wanted to take a picture with me. I love how everywhere we go people recognize us as something special. They can see the light of Christ glowing so brightly in us and they want to know more about what we know. It truly is amazing!

After this week I am going to be the lone missionary from Heber City in the MDM. Elder Wade goes home. It has been fun having a missionary from my home town serving around me.  

I hope you all had a great week! Happy Fourth of July! Happy Birthday Dad! 

Love Sister Witt

week 49 and week 47 in MDM- Blow it up miracles

Hey y'all, 

I hope you have been having a great week and have been able to see miracles. I know they happen around us everyday. Some days its harder to see the miracle but I promise there is always one. The work has been pretty hard because of the slow summers on campus and sometimes it gets pretty discouraging. Sister Craig and I have been working hard on whatever gets thrown at us but for the last transfer it felt like we were just running into the same brick wall just to pick ourselves up and run right into it again. At a Zone Conference at the beginning of the transfer President Cleveland talked about if something wasn't working we just BLOW IT UP and try something new. He used the phrase 'Blow it up' probably 35 times in his instruction and well that is exactly what we did these last couple of weeks. We made it our project to call all the ysa's on our ward list. There are 130 ysa's in the Flint ward and about 3 active. We were able to find a lot that had moved and A LOT of disconnected numbers. But the miracle in it all was the Alcorn Family. Their daughter that is ysa doesn't even live in the home and hasn't for about 9 years. But when we called Brother Alcorn was more than happy to have us come over. We went over for dinner and a short lesson which turned into a 3 hour talk with the family. Mom and Dad are members but none of their 7 kids are. We shared the story of Lehi's dream with them and all of the kids (ranging from 6-19 years old) wanted to know how they could eat the same fruit that Lehi did. Well ever since that day we have been working with the parents to come back to church and the kids to get baptized. When we read the Book of Mormon with them you can feel the spirit enter their home. Its so unreal how it happens. Like just weeks ago I'm sure that home was chaos, but now with a little of faith and a lot of feeding the sisters they are starting to come back to the iron rod. 

Another BLOW IT UP miracle we saw is that we have been going to UoM because we thought it would be the most effective of all of our campuses in the summer because it is the biggest. But we decided to go to Mott on Wednesday just for the heck of it. There was a good amount of people there. The first guy we talked to wasn't interested but the next guy wanted to learn right there on the spot. We sat down and taught him the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He was touched that Heavenly Father had reached out again to His children. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he was so excited to read it. When we taught him the Plan of Salvation the following Friday he was blown away by the kingdoms and Gods mercy towards us yet again. Right after we got done with our lesson with him we met Megan. We taught her this last Wednesday and she thought it was about time that we had the Priesthood back on earth. 

I am so glad we are starting to find success this summer. This week is transfers and I hope I get to stay in Flint so I can continue to see the miracles that come from blowing it up. 

Love Sister Witt

week 48 and week 46 in MDM

no email

week 47 and week 45 in MDM

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week 46 and week 44 in MDM~"backpacks, bunk beds, and baptisms"

Hey Y'all, 

Sorry it's been a minute since I have written one of these group emails. Things were pretty crazy here for a bit and then slowed down to nothing. I'm still on campus and I still love it. Its been a lot harder to find people because there are a lot less students here during the spring and summer terms. I am still with Sister Craig and we are keeping ourselves busy by taking parts of the Elders are to work in. But we love being on campus. The best part about it is that everyone is super willing to talk to you and most of them either need our message or don't so we find the elect pretty quickly. Also Pres. Cleveland is letting us wear backpacks when most missionaries don't get to so that's pretty nice. 

The ward I am in is so so great! All of the missionaries love it here. Its the only ward in our mission with 4 sets of missionaries. 2 sets of Elders and 2 sets of Sisters. We share an apt with the other sisters and sometimes that's crazy but its cool to talk with them every night about the miracles we have seen through out the day. There are so many miracles around us every day! Like the other day we walked into a store and this guy named Cory walked up to us! He told us he was less active and knew he needed to come back to church. He is coming to church this week! How amazing is that?

We got a bunk bed so now we have room for our study stuff in our bedroom. Because boy can those sisters talk! Sometimes because our secedule is so different being on campus it would be hard to have our full studies because they would come in and we would all want to talk about our day. But now it is so much better. #BunkBedsBringMiracles We are also the only missionaries in the mission with a bunk bed so that's awesome! 

Caroline was baptized a couple of weeks ago. She is the sweetest 9 year old ever! He mom wanted it to be her decision to be baptized so she was waiting until she knew it was true. Teaching her was such a great joy! That little girl has more enthusiasm for the gospel of Jesus Christ than most people I know! We got to teach really simply to her and it helped remind us what the focus of each lesson and commandment is. 

I finished the Book of Mormon again. I know that book is true with my whole being! I love it. If you ever have a bad day or know someone who does tell them to read that book! I promise if they do it searching for answers, searching for joy, searching for peace it will happen! The Book of Mormon is true! We get the oppertunity to read it and share it! I just love it so much! 

Love you all!

Sister Ashlee Witt

9070 N Saginaw rd #410 Mt. Morris MI 48458

week 45 and week 43 in MDM

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week 44 and week 42 in MDM

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week 43 and week 41 in MDM

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week 42 and week 40 in MDM

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week 41 and week 39 in MDM

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week 40 and week 38 in MDM

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week 39 and week 37 in MDM- "halfway to home"

week 38 and week 36 in MDM

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week 37 and week 35 in MDM-always more miracles

Hey Y'all, 

I hope you all loved general conference as much as I did! I love the power and authority that the leaders of our church speak with! They make me so happy and excited to me a missionary! I will be working on not having fear like president Uchtdorf talked about and using the Book of Mormon more in my daily life like President Monson talked about. I love these men very much! 

One of the cool miracles we saw this week is a 23 year old named Aubrey. We met her while we were headed back to our car to grab lunch. Sister Craig shared her testimony with her about the Book of Mormon and I asked if we could meet right then. She said yes so we taught her the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and invited her to be baptized. She seemed really excited about it. We scheduled an appointment for the next day and she asked if we could meet her in a different building. I was pretty confident I knew where it was so we said yes and went throughout our day. The next day as we went to the building I thought she was going to be at we realized it was totally the wrong place. We asked someone for directions to the building she was at and they decided to walk us there. His name is Carlos, we taught him the first lesson while walking to meet up with her. Aubrey doesn't have a phone so we wouldn't have had any way to get in contact with her. We were praying in our hearts the whole time as we walked that she would be there. When we finally walked into the building almost a full 30 minutes late she was sitting right there waiting for us! She said something prompted her to come back out and wait after we didn't show the first time. How cool is that! We had a couple other instances with her like that and the Spirit just kept placing us all in the right place. 

I keep seeing little miracles everyday. A text sent at the right time to the right person, or a letter coming to me on just the right day, or a bright yellow bag of skittles in the isle I shared my testimony in, or members from another ward seeing me talk to others, or popsicles in the freezer after a spicy Asian food Friday, or roads you can drive 60 on and the tiwii doesn't scream at you, I think one of the greatest things my mission has taught me is to see the miracles that are happening around us everyday. 

I love you all and hope you see miracles today!

Love Sister Witt

The rain soaked us this week and this picture us us trying to frown about it... We were laughing too hard. 

The Flint sisters all wore matching skirts to conference

week 36 and week 34 in MDM

no email

week 35 and week 33 in MDM- Miracles do Happen!

Hey y'all! 

I hope you are having a great week so far, (I know its only Monday but I never know how to start these things off.) I feel like every week they are cutting down email time in the MDM when the reality is I am just getting worse at managing it. I love love love the emails you all send. They do more for me than you could know. 

Thank you for all the questions about Chrissy and Alisha. They are doing wonderful, it was spring break at Chrissy's school which made it hard to meet last week and Alisha is in between houses but they are doing great! If you wanted to you could send some prayers Alisha's way. 

We are teaching some awesome people right now! The Lord is defiantly blessing Sister Craig and I. Even though we are on campus we got permission to teach Nancy, she is in her 80's. He son is a member of our ward.  We were teaching Nancy the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she asked about the word of wisdom and the law of chastity, we were going to teach that the next time we saw her but felt prompted to teach it right there. We taught her and she was very accepting of both it was awesome! When We invited her to be baptized the first time we met she pulled out her calendar and wrote in pen over the whole day "church baptism". She has such great faith. 

But here is one of the coolest and most recent miracles I have seen. A couple of weeks ago we were contacting on Mott and met this girl named savanna we sat down and started to teach her the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ right there. Her friend Katie walked up right as we were about to share about Joseph Smith. We ended up teaching them both and setting up return appointments. But their friend was shot and they were mourning so they didn't want to meet. Then it was spring break and they were out of town. Well while we were planning yesterday we decided that we would really pray in faith this week for them to be placed in our path again while we were contacting at mott. This morning when we were there I saw Katie but wasn't sure if it was her. We walked over and she said we could meet again tomorrow! HOW COOL IS THAT!! PRAYERS OF FAITH TOTALLY WORK!! It was a really big faith building experience.

I love you all and hope you are looking for miracles working in your own lives! 

Love Sister Witt

From Brother Bachmeier:

week 34 and week 32 in MDM

no email

week 33 and week 31 in MDM~ "its been a minute"

Hey Ya'll,

Transfers were last week and Sister Perry finished her mission and went home. It was sad but she is going to do amazing things back in AZ. I stayed in Flint and now I am with Sister Craig. And she is amazing! I am super grateful for her and the fearlessness she has when it comes to campus contacting. We have been doing so well! I have already learned so much from her. I'm not going to lie though its been pretty hard taking over the area, I felt super unprepared but the Lord has been helping me so much! I'm glad He has my back! I have felt so many promptings to go somewhere or do something that ins't in the norm but we have done it and seen some really cool miracles. One was on Saturday night, we split our p-day between Saturdayand Monday so we can be on campus everyday. So we went out to eat for p-day and walked around the mall for a couple minutes. While we were walking around the mall we crossed paths with this older woman and her dog a couple of times. Finally I stopped her and introduced myself. Her name is Lois. She just lost everything, her husband died, she lost her house and her land. She now lives out of her car or something. She wasn't interested in our message right away but we stayed and talked with her anyway. She was so sweet. She wanted us to pray with her so we did and she gave us great big hugs. It was really cool to feel love for her though she didn't want to meet with us. I bet next time she sees sister missionaries she is going to remember us and go talk to them. This was just her first tap. 

We got a referral from some missionaries serving in our ward, her name is Sherry. They taught her a couple of times and then she fell off the radar. She called them and asked if they could meet but she had moved so they sent her to us. When we went in for her first lesson we sat down and she right away mentioned baptism. She said that it was something she still wanted to do. Then her cousin Desiree came in and asked us what sets our church apart from any other church. As we taught the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them the spirit filled the trailer. Sherry testified of the first vision to her cousin and they both set baptismal dates. It was amazing! One thing my dad told me about a week before I came out was that every time the first vision is about to be shared satan tries to stop it again. We saw that in their lesson! Desiree's dog started to trow up as we shared Josephs experience. It was actually really gross and kinda funny. 

Anyway! I hope you all had a wonderful week! 

Love Sister Witt 

week 32 and week 30 in MDM

no email

week 31 and week 29 in MDM- crazy busy campus

Hey y'all, 

Sorry its been a while since I have sent out one of these big group emails but last week and the week before we only had 45 min to email instead of the normal 90. 

Missionary life has been crazy fast and crazy good. Chrissy and Alisha, both got baptized these last 2 weeks and are receiving the Holy Ghost next Sunday. I am so proud of them and the challenges and obstacles they have overcome to be baptized! They are such great examples to their kids and their friends! The both have burning testimonies of the Book of Mormon and of the Atonement. When we were going over the interview questions with Alisha we were talking about repentance and she said "that's because of the Atonement, right?" I just love how much the Spirit teaches them because if it were all up to Sister Perry and I then it would take forever and a day to help people to progress enough to be baptized. Chrissy had a coffee problem and while reading the Book of Mormon she told us she had the thought "coffee, who?" and that she didn't need it in her life anymore to make her happy. Those are just a couple of the miracles we have been able to see with them. Chrissy has a 4 year old daughter and Alisha has a 2 year old son. It has been amazing and miraculous to see how learning and practicing the gospel have helped them become better moms. They have both made more goals and plans for the future because the gospel of Jesus Christ brings into every person who follows it a sense of hope and determination like I have never before seen. I hope and pray that you all have been able to see this at work in your own lives as you have practiced the steps of faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. It isn't a path that only those investigating the church follow but one that i try to constantly cycle through daily. 

Love Sister Witt