"my armpits smell like cake."

QUOTE: Tommy, 5 years old. hahaha I love little kids. and I MISS holding them. it's seriously torture and some little kids tempt me SO much. like they come and try and sit on my lap or hold on to my neck and pick up their feet and try and get me to hold them. GAH. I feel like Satan pushing them off. #missionaryprobs

BEST WEEK EVER. Ahhhh I'm so happy that I got to Skype you guys this week! AAAAND talk to Stone through Skype, through the phone. hahah those were the best tears I cried all week. My Christmas day was good. there is nothinnnnnnnnnnnn like the mission, that's for sure. hahaha it's awesome though! The members SPOILED us! We got stockings filled a few times by different sisters in the ward and they just totally took care of us and made our day special!

Come day after Christmas, the Lord has kept us BUSY! And I'm so grateful because I've barely had time to think about home or missing the holidays with you guys. This week we contacted a lot of referrals and got two new investigators and talked to a lottttt of different people! Yesterday after church, my jaw was so tight and my head was POUNDING from all the talking that we were doing...so naturally Sister James blocked off one of the doors in the church building and I did a nice long headstand and it did the trick and we kept going till 9! Ha! #yogiforlyfe

I'm so, so grateful to be serving a mission. I know that Christ lives and that it is essential that we come to know Him. I think one of my favorite names for our Savior is that He is our Advocate with the Father. I don't know about you, but if there's anyone that I want to help plead my case before Heavenly Father, I want it to be our Savior. I want him to be able to tell him... "No, I know Miss Lauren Gayle and she knows me. She tried her best and my graceis sufficient for her."

May our resolutions this year include becoming more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. He is "the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by [Him]."

I LOVE YOU GUYS.

xoxo,

sister ramsey

me: "hey can you help us find a street on base? we forgot our map."

airbase guard: "sure...whatchya lookin for?"

me: "where is ratchet?"

guard: **looks at me like I'm crazy and laughs

me: "hahaha I'm not kidding! That's a real street!"

guard: (he's black FYI) "boo there aint no such thing as ratchet 'round here. WE IN  I D A H O."

hahahaha I MISS BLACK PEOPLE WHO KNOW WHAT RATCHET IS.

PS- anyone know how to get in touch with Usher's manager?! I would like to ask him to record me some hymns so that I don't have to suffer without Sunday night slow jamz any longer.  

PSS- HOLLA TO MY GIRL K8 HANSEN GHOSTFACEKILLA goin to the OLYPMICS. so incredibly proud of her. probs old news but I'm servin this thing called a mish and I'm outta the loop. LOVE YOU GIRL. #TTYL #BRB #GTSAM 

#wildwildwest

The names JAMES. Jessie James...aka my new companion...aka she's not actually an outlaw and the only thing she's going to rob people of is their trip to the telestial. #merrychristmas

 

this week was really good! and really crazy with trips to Twin Falls for transfers aaaand our mission Christmas dinner... it was the bessssssssssst. I hadn't seen Sister Wright since our transfer 5 weeks ago and it was just too long. oh I love that girl. AND Sister Bly (my MTC companion).... she is my sister. Having the whole mission together was a dream. They held a talent show, which was a lot of fun and then a dinner and a devotional. I'm so happy to be a missionary now. It's so humbling to be surrounded by so many incredible people...180 missionaries, mission leaders, members, General Authorities, etc. Ahhh it was invigorating.

 

THANK YOU THANK YOU to all those who have sent me a little somethin in the mail. I don't deserve it all, but I'm GRATEFUL for each and every one of you. I feel soo lucky to have you in my life!!

 

TWO DAYS TILL WE CAN SKYPE. I'm dying. I'm so excited. 60 minutes. I'm so jealous you guys are in Tennessee but I hope you are loooooooooooving Christmas break and relishing the season. This is the best time of year & the spirit of Christ just fills the world. I wish it happened more then once a year... maybe with 80,000 missionaries out, we can make it last all year round. Ha, that would be somethin.

 

I LOVE YOU GUYS so much. And I hope all who read this knows HOW MUCH I love you! I can't even put it all into words.

 

Merry Christmas LOVAS.

 

xoxo,

sister ramsey

my last district

THE REAL JESSE JAMES

j chillin with Mary J Bly

anotha day, anotha dolla

hiiiiiiiiiiii. first off, THANK YOU DAD. seriously my future hubs has his job cut out for him... for more reasons then one... but mostly because I've had YOU as my dad. couldn't be more lucky. I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW YOU COULD SEND A CHRISTMAS TREE. hahahaha that was seriously the best surprise ever. I was just telling Sis Cluff earlier that day that we should get ourselves a little tree. #INSPIRED #cantstopwontstop

 

and momma. you know me TOO WELL. Mr. Buble' has been playing non-stop in our car ever since I got that CD. hahahha I LOVE YOU. best Christmas album. you guys are great at sending Christmas spirit via mail. #props

 

i don't have a ton of time today but this week was a good one!! sister cluff and I don't have a ton of time left together cause transfers are WEDNESDAY & we got calls last night that our area is splitting and we both are training... haha #what 

 

I'll be covering 3 out of our 4 wards that we have now, so i'm stoked about that. Sister Cluff is staying in Mt. Home and covering two of the wards that our elders have... on BIKES. #woof

 

soooo pray for us both! I have to act like I know somethin' and Cluff Diddy and her new comp are going to freeze their butts off! haha it's going to be great! I'm going to miss Sister Cluff though... We've decided that there probably couldn't be two more opposite people in existence buuuuut it's been a fun five weeks. I can't tell you how many times she's called me "apostate" or just looked at me in awe after I do something retarded (like roll over the hood and pretend she hit me with the car)... haha we don't get each other. BUt we actually had the bestttt conversation this week... we read our little daily dose (aka a scripture at night) and it normally takes 30 seconds. 3 HOURS LATER we were still talking and we had the most in depth, mind blowing, AH-HA conversation ever. and it was awesome. and then I threw up 7 pages worth of words to try and record it all in my journal so that I could remember everything that we talked about. GAH I don't know how anyone can get bored with the gospel. the concept of eternity could keep you thinking for hours. ps...it's the coolest thing ever.

 

I LOVE THIS GOSPEL. I love the way the spirit enlightens our minds and can help us learn and stretch and grow. I think my favorite thing ever is when I'm teaching someone, but I realize I'm learning too.

 

I love you all and hope you are having a great week. 9 DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS. hand written letters are my only Christmas wish. I cannot wait to skypeeeeeeee.

 

Remember the reason for the season and LOVE someone. SERVE someone. BE someone, someone else needs.

 

xoxo,

sister ramsey

 

 

suuuper awkward moment of the week:

 

this week we were having dinner over at someone's house and while we were sharing our little spiritual thought with the fam, their little CHAWEENIE (chihuahua/ wiener dog mix...funniest name ever) comes over and mounts my arm. I'M SORRY NO. NOT OKAYYY YOU LITTLE ****. hahahaha nothing to drive away the spirit like....that.

 

peace & blessins.

"so vintage. so rad slash it needs some TLC."

that's sister cluff quoting me. hahaha you should see her impersonate me doing my ghetto voice. it's the funniest. did i ever tell you guys she's from Springerville? She knows alllllllll about snowflake and show low and small town livin. Her parents live on like 60 acres or something up there. i wonder if we've ever crossed paths before... haha small world.

i can't believe it's already Monday again... these weeks go by SO fast. we only have like a week and a half left in our transfer!! Each week I'm out Heavenly Father pushes me a little more and it's awesome.

so last week we met this guy named TJ at our Thanksgiving dinner with our islander and we told him a little bit about what we do as missionaries and we invited him to come to church on Sunday but he gave us a reason as to why he wouldn't be able to so we said okay and went about our Thanksgiving dinner. Then on Sunday, HE SHOWED UP. What? Later in the week we stopped by and talked to him about it and he said that he loved church and was so impressed at how welcoming everyone was! Then we gave him a BOM & invited him to read and set up an apt to come back and teach him. 

Last night, we met at his house and had such an incredible lesson! Ahhh Heavenly Father is truly PREPARING so many of his children to accept the gospel. TJ is such a humble guy and he is so willing to follow whatever God puts in front of him, even if he is unsure about it or it doesn't make sense. He's not sure why God brought him out here to Idaho all by himself{makes two of us, haha}, but he feels the spirit prompting him to stay here and not go back to California. We taught him most of the first lesson and invited him to be baptized and he said yes! I feel like TJ has taught me that it is truly our mission to just INVITE. Heavenly Father is doing all the work and guiding people back to Him, according to His timing for each of His children. I love seeing how the Lord works and feel blessed that he allows me to help. 

God works through each and every one of us when we muster up the courage to invite our friends to share our testimonies and the happiness we feel because of the gospel. This weekend I gave a talk on being converted to the gospel and it hit me that when we are truly converted, we take the testimony Heavenly Father has blessed us with and we do something about it. When we act and become and do something with our testimonies, we become converted and we experience a change of heart. I LOVED Elder Eyring's message this month... he says: 

"The Lord makes that commandment [D&C 88:81] easier to obey through the change that occurs in your heart as you accept and live the gospel of Jesus Christ. As a result, your love for others grows, as does your desire for them to have the same happiness you have experienced.....

Christmastime turns our hearts to the Savior and to the joy His gospel has brought us. We show our gratitude to Him best as we offer that happiness to others. Gratitude is turned to joy as we offer names to missionaries and as we take the names of our ancestors to the temple. That evidence of our gratitude can make friends and families that endure forever."

I love that! And I love you guys! Invite all of TAMPA to Night in Bethlehem!! haha I'm so sad I won't be there. No worries though... The Love Abiding Christian Church aka the ONLY black-choir in Mountain Home, ID performed at the Nativity event that happened at our Stake Center. OH MAN. It was the best thing ever and made me feel like I was right back in the South for a minute. I talked to them after and they made me SO happy!! This is the best time of year. Especially since it's a balmy 2 degrees today.

I LOVE YOU GUYS. t minus 15 days? till we get to skype!!! AH I CAN"T WAIT.

xoxo, 

sister ramsey

#WWJD

DECEMBER SAY WHAT? this is one of my favorite times of the year! Every time I hear Angels We Have Heard on High, I get super excited and think about Night in Bethlehem and then I get sad about missing it! Someone send me the sound track... cough... Jay? Dolly? Mountain Home is actually doing something similar to NIB, but it's called the Creche'. Sounds fancy buuuut I'm not sure anything can top NIB. I'll keep you updated. 

Speaking of sad. PAUL WALKER DIED? Tell me social media is in mourning for this loss of beauty. One of our investigators told me last night and I was so upset. Hahaha I probably could've cried over it buuuut Sis Cluff has made mevery aware of our calling as of late and I'm trying to represent Jesus Christ better. Do you know what kind of mantle that is?! She's pointed out to me...a number of times... that I still say things that Jesus Christ proooooobably wouldn't be saying if He were here. Hahahaha she's kept a quote book and by reading it, I sound like the most inappropriate missionary in existence. FOR THE RECORD... it's all clean. It's just funny. Haha someone needs to send me one of the WWJD bracelets from the south.

I'm so glad you guys had such a good Thanksgiving! Mine was a lot of fun! We had 3 dinners scheduled but luckilyyyy one had to cancel so it was great! Our last one was with John, from Guam, and we had an island Thanksgiving with fried fish (head, tail, and all) aaaaand straight up RAW fish in Wasabi. hahahah so good. I've eaten more sweets and COOKIES this week than I can even count. OH MY. i love it.

so much happened this week and I don't have any time to write about it. BUT starting yesterday, our mission has set out to study about the Savior each and every day this month in our studies and I'd invite you to do the same. I am SO grateful for Jesus Christ and for the Atonement. The more I study and apply Christ's doctrine, the more I learn about Him. And the more we learn about Him, the better we know Him. We have to know Him to become like Him. 

I love you all SO MUCH and think about you daily! We are in this together. As Stone's letter I got in the mail this week said: #thisishowwedo #ramzgang (his letter had 20+ hashtags in it. hahahahaha i've created a monster)

PSALMS 100:3-5

xoxo, 

Sis Ramsey 

"We chill, me and Him"

YOU GUYS. missions are seriously awesome. but missions are hard. I never understood what "hard" meant, until I got here. and it's nothing I can really explain either. just sendin out a big WORDDDDDDDDDD to all those returned missionaries out there. haha

 

My mission is teaching me so much. It's especially teaching me how to turn OUT. There are times and days when I just don't feel like being a missionary but I have to do it anyway. I just keep moving, keep working, keep praying, and thinking of someone else besides myself. I'm so grateful to have these 18 months to practice that because it definitely isn't a natural thing for me to want to all the time, ha. This is good. This is real good.

 

This week the Lord was good to us! I fiiiiiinally got to meet with a guy named John, who Sis Cluff and her old companion met with once or twice before and he is awesome. He is from Guam and he LOVES the gospel. He is so floored that every question that he's ever had is so easily answered and that the spirit is always accompanied with everything that he learns. We met with him this week and had a really good discussion with him and set a baptismal date for December. Ah, he's so great. He was tellin me about his relationship with the Lord and he said, AND I QUOTE, "We chill, me and Him. It's like we're on a whole 'nother level." hahaha

 

ALSO, we met a guy named Chad this week and had the best lesson. He lives on the Air Force Base, which means we can't go over without a member or an apt, so we went over with Sister Hyer (who is the best RM ever). He loves talking about religion and stuff so we got talking about God and he told us that he wished that he could say, with the same conviction as we did, that he knows that God lives. Obviously, we told him that was possible and we challenged him to read the Book of Mormon. I had shared my experience with the Book of Mormon this year and how I followed Alma 32:27 and "experimented on the word" in 50 days... it was all clicking for Chad and he took up the challenge to do the same. Ahhhh it was seriouslyawesome. The spirit was so strong and we all felt it. Chad looked at Sis Hyer and said, "Did Salt Lake send her or something...?" haha, why yes. a prophet actually. shall we meet next week and talk about it? yessss, yes we should.

 

AND Molly and Echo had their baptism and confirmations this weekend. It was beautiful! I love being on a mission because it's reminding me how important baptism is. That sounds obvious but I haven't thought about my actual baptism a ton since, I don't know when... But being here, seeing people who have gone 30, 40 years without the gospel and then seeing them be baptized, it's somethin' else. You can see it in their eyes!

 

Well I love you guys a TON. This week will be weird without you all around the table for Thanksgiving but I'm sure it will be great! We have SO much to be grateful for. Where would we be without each other?! Where would we be without the gospel?! My heart is so full thinking about how good our God is.

 

I love him. I know He lives. CLING to His gospel and He'll never let you down.

 

xoxo,

sister ramsey 

Country Rooooad.....

...MOUNTAIN HOOOOOOOOOOOME. this is the place i belongggggggg!" 

John Denver anyone? haha Mountain Home is my new area and it's great! It's a lot different from Burley but I think I'll warm up to it soon. Everything and everyone is so spread out, so I'm really grateful we have a car. If we're being honest... I miss being in a biking area already. Haha, i know. WHAT? I'm already becoming so diva over turning on the heat as fast as possible when we get in the car that I miss the tough(ish) girl who rode a bike everywhere in this weather. Aaaand when you're on bikes, you feel like the Lord called you to be the town greeter. I miss feeling like it was my job to wave "hi" to everyone and the convenience of being able to stop and talk to someone or help someone bring in groceries. Biking areas definitely have their perks. But for now, I'll enjoy turning the heat down for my companion because I'm roasting her in the car. Ha.

Speaking of my companion.... Her name is Sister Cluff and she is so funny. She reminds me SO MUCH of Kelsie Catrelli (aka Sister Kelsie Thompson). You know how Kelsie would always call me "absurd" and "outrageous" and things of such nature... Sister Cluff does the same. Hahahaha she is awesome. She is super quiet but once we're teaching, she's really powerful. She is our designated driver and hates it. Like I've never seen anyone hate driving SO much. She said she used to avoid it at all costs and so watching her drive everywhere just makes me laugh. I told her I never knew I would pay for having a lead foot so much on my mission... and she corrected me and said, "I never knew I would be paying so much foryour lead foot on my mission." But it's a good thing we're out in the middle of nowhere, where the population of this entire city is like 10,000 cause there is like no traffic. ever. haha it's a quiet place.

To be honest, this week was a rough transition for me. There is not a lot happening here in Mountain Home and we are covering four different wards and are only teaching a few people. That being said, I KNOW the Lord has people prepared no matter where I'm at. I can already feel there will be a lot of time spent on my knees this week. 

On the plus side, we do have a baptism this weekend and I'm so excited! It's a mother and her daughter and they are so awesome! They have a cool story and I'll have to share it with you next week!

I love you all and I'm out of time! You are always in my prayers and I love love love reading your emails each week! They keep me going!

xoxo, 

sister ramsey

alsoooooo....

this is my new mailing address

1050 E. 18th N.

Mountain Home, ID 83647

LOVE YOU

me & sister cluff in our fancy camaroooooooo... i mean corolla #missionlife