September 23 - First Week in the Field!

Dear family and friends,

Week 1 in the field, Week 3 in the mission....only 77 more weeks!  Crazy.

So this week out here in the field has been so great!  And insane.  And confusing.  And really interesting.  And wonderful.  Basically, a mix of a million emotions.

I can't really remember a whole lot about this past week haha.  It went by SO fast.  But I'll tell you some basic things!

1. It is BEAUTIFUL here.  The leaves are changing and it's colorful and bright everywhere.  BUT, the weather isn't cold.  It's PERFECT.

2. My trainer companion's name is Sister NeCole (cool way to spell "Nicole" huh?!) De Rurange.  She is 24 and she is AMAZING.  She knows Eric Sheffield's older sister, Laura, so we had a mutual friend connection there!  She is SO funny, and we always break out into song at random times.  She also like to RUN!!!  YAY!!!! Hallelujah!  So we go running every morning together.  And it makes me happy.

3. My area is the Redwoods YSA 2 Ward in the Santa Rosa South area.  I teach in Santa Rosa South, but all the people who are ages 18-30.  The neighborhood we live in is absolutely GORGEOUS.  Gorgeous.  Every morning we run in this park with these beautiful lakes and trees surrounding the path, and all the leaves are falling and the air feels nice and cool...it's seriously a DREAM here.  Funny side story: Sis. DeRurange were running the other day and saw this man ahead of us "disappear into the bushes" so we started freaking out and thought he was gonna grab us from the bushes when we passed by.  We ran SO fast and were looking at the bushes and as we passed by that spot, we realized he had just turned off onto a side path haha.  But then we saw him walking on the side path and freaked out again and almost sprinted a mile and a half back to our apartment haha.  We definitely worked out hard that morning!

4. Our area got split from last transfer, so all our investigators ended up on the Santa Rosa North area and not our's...darn.  We're trying to find and contact as many people as we can to get some of God's children on the path to baptism, but it's been kind of hard to find people.  Say a prayer my companion and I will be able to find a couple new investigators this week!

5. Online work: Find me and add me on Facebook!  My name is Sister Nikole Decker.  And also, SHARE MY POSTS!!!  It's SO important that members start helping in the work (See D&C 88:72-73).  It's not just the missionaries now.  We ALL need to help bring people unto Christ. 

I just learned a statistic: every 1/700 families that are taught by missionaries gets baptized.  But here's the clincher: every 2/3 families that are taught by missionaries IN A MEMBER FAMILY'S HOME gets baptized.  So challenge for my immediate family: get our neighbors to come over for dinner and FHE's and such, and be bold and invite the missionaries to teach the lesson!  Then hopefully they'll want to learn more, and you can help the statistic become 2/3 instead of 1/700.

6. Funny story: Sis. De Rurange had the brilliant idea to leave her butter in a bag on our back seat of our car...and it melted all over the seat haha.  So we had some rancid butter frothing on the back seat for a day or two, and then we finally bought some stuff to scrub it out.  We followed the directions and "scrubbed vigorously" and got ourselves all buttered up, but we FINALLY got the butter out of the seat...or so we thought!  The next day, we car-pooled with two other sisters in our area to dinner at a member's house and one of the sisters, Sister Ika, sat in that seat.  She gets out of the car and I'm walking behind her and  her WHOLE BEHIND is one massive BUTTER SMEAR!!  Hahaha so we ended up dying laughing  outside this member's house and had to compose ourselves before we walked inside...Oh, and Sis. Ika had to sit at their table with a butter butt.  So, I guess that means we need to scrub our seat one more time!

The Church is true!  Every aspect of my life now is SATURATED in it, and I am so happy.  Happier than I have ever been in my entire life.  I laugh more than I ever have, and I feel happier than I ever have, despite the fact that I am constantly tired haha.

But every time I read from my scriptures or bear my testimony or help someone out on the street (I.E. we helped a little old lady push her cart around in the grocery store), I can just FEEL that everything I am doing is right - that this Gospel of Jesus Christ is true, and that only through the steps Heavenly Father has given (and sent prophets to tell us) can we come back to Him.  And He wants us to come back to him so badly.  The reason why He put us here on Earth in the first place is because He wants us to be happy like He is and to have a body like He does - to become like Him.  But His plan is so perfect, and so easy and simple to follow!  Sometimes I wish I could just telepathically transmit all my thoughts into everyone's minds so they would say, "Oh yeah, of course we need to be baptized!  And of course we have a Heavenly Father who loves us!  And of course there's a way back to Him, and that's what Faith in Jesus Christ, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End are for!"  People have their agency, though, and I am grateful for that - if they didn't, it wouldn't be God's plan.

Well, I have got to go soon, so I'll leave you with some scriptures: Mosiah 18; D&C 89; D&C 4; Alma 26, John 14 (I can't remember if I've included those before...but give them a look, they're amazing!).

The Church is true, and Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are REAL, and they love us more than we can ever imagine.  Choose the right, and know that I love you all SO much!  Until next week,

With love,

Sister Kolee Decker

P.S. I've been typing this e-mail at a stand-up computer in a college (Santa Rosa Junior College) library and I have to use the restroom so badly and I'm sure everyone is wondering why I'm dancing around and moving so much haha

P.P.S. I'll send pictures next time!  And immediate family: I forgot to attach my journal entry to a letter, so I'll try to do that today!

September 11 - Week 1 Provo West MTC

Hi family and friends!!

First off for Mommy - just forward this to people on the e-mail list, and other fambam who'd like to hear about my adventures:)  Also, don't be sad, be happy I'm out serving the Lord, and know that I am SO happy.  (And direct Decker family)

OKAY.  So week 1 in the MTC.  Crazy.  Honestly, the first day was an absolute blur.  A BLUR.  No kidding.  I only remember I kept thinking to myself, "what the?!  I'm on a mission now?!  No way."  And I remember saying multiple times to myself...yeah...I want to go home.  This is too hard.  And I'll tell you what - I probably said that to myself 30 more times the next few days. 

But the elders and sisters who'd been in the MTC for a while already kept telling us greenies "Make it through until Sunday and you'll be able to make it through your entire mission."  And guess what?!  I made it through Sunday and I feel SO much better and I don't want to quit anymore:)

So fambam, you'll be comforted to know that right after I got through security and walked to my gate, there were probably 12 other missionaries sitting together and we all were puffy-eyed from crying and we bonded and talked and it made us less sad and more focused, so that was good!

And after Camel and Riley picked me up and we ate Zupa's Camille dropped me off at the MTC (we ended up crying...of course), and my "host" took my luggage and we got all my supplies, then I found out that I'm not going to be at the main MTC but the West Campus MTC...so I had to get in a bus and pack my luggage with me and got bussed over to Wyview Apartments.  I found out that they converted half of Wyview and most of Raintree Commons Apartments into "West Campus MTC" since there's just not enough room in the main MTC anymore.  It's actually really nice though because I live in an apartment at Wyview with 3 other sisters and we get to walk about 10 minutes to Raintree Apartments for class and meals and such, so I don't have to stay cooped up inside like people sometimes do at the main MTC.

Honestly...I don't remember the rest of the day.  I'll tell you though, the MTC is a ROLLER COASTER of emotion.  On Saturday, my companion Sis. Shurtleff (and for family, imagine Megan Tyler going on a mission - that's exactly Sis. Shurtleff's personality and she also looks like Megan a little bit) and I were DYING laughing at dinner.  Here's what happened:

*I drop a piece of cantaloupe on the ground "Darn my cantaloupe escaped!"

Sis. Shurtleff: "Give it a spanking and put it to bed!"

...WHAT?!  

Haha we died laughing.  Also she speaks Hebrew, so sometimes she'll start speaking to me in Hebrew and won't realize it and then she goes, "Oh...right...I said..." and say what she said.  We recently started doing this thing where after lessons we teach our "investigators" if it went well we say, "Baru Hashem!" Or "Praise the Lord!"  And when we're walking places we usually knock water bottles and say, "Leh Hime!" or "To life!" and take a swig, then knock bottles and say, "Leh Hime!" and take a swig over and over again until we DIE laughing.

She's awesome I love her!

My district is awesome too.  I'm with 4 other elders and another companionship of sisters, so it's 50-50 girls and guys.  The set of sisters we're with are awesome, they're our zone's (a zone is a group of districts - we have 5 districts in our zone) sister district leaders.

I wish I had more time to e-mail!  I only have 9 minutes left so I'll try to sum up some awesome things going on here:)

Well, Saturday my companion and I completely bombed one of our lessons, and after really talking it over (and let's face it, bawling in our room and staying up past 10:30 because we just really needed to talk about how hard things are and how frustrated we were), we came to this conclusion: we were being selfish.  We kept thinking, "I'm not very good at teaching. I don't know how to do this.  It's hard for me."  But it's NOT ABOUT YOU.  It's about others.  The missionary purpose is: "Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end."  Nowhere in there does it say "I, me, we, you."  It's all about OTHERS.

So we made a goal to not be so selfish and that when we feel weak, to read Proverbs 3:5-6, Ether 12:27, D&C 1:23, and refer back to Elder Bednar's MTC talk, "Character of Christ" (which was a life-changing talk we watched on Sunday - future missionaries, watch it - it is INCREDIBLE and so powerful.  He basically says, "Who cares what you want?  The natural man (see Mosiah 3:19)  Get over yourself.  It's not about what you want.  It's not about you."

Very humbling, but very true.  This mission isn't about me - it's about thinking outside of myself and serving God and His children (Mosiah 2:17).

Also, here are some scriptures that have been AMAZING for me the past few days, and I'd encourage you to look them up and read them:

D&C 11:21

Alma 40-42 - Plan of Salvation

John 14:27

Alma 38:8

Mosiah 28:3-4

D&C 31

2 Nephi 9

2 Nephi 31

3 Nephi 27

I love you all, thank you for sending me letters and packages, I appreciate every single one:)  Write me a letterrrrrr!!!!  Until next week,

With love,

Sister Decker