Spiders and Love

We took a "car selfie" since it was raining, even though we don't have a car....BIKES RULE!

WOW!!! Conference Weekend is coming upon us... AHHHHHHH! Conference as a missionary is INCREDIBLE!! I know I have only seen Women's Conference so far this year, but I loved every word!

This week has been a week of adventures! We never have a slow day. Seriously... I would love to share with you my story about two spiders... 

1. Sister Bell and I were biking down a busy road. It was sunny outside and life was great!  I looked down at my gear shifts on my handle bar... As I looked I saw a HUUUUUUUGE brown and red spotted spider on my handle bar. I SCREAMED. Thankfully I was by a stoplight so I could jump off on the sidewalk. Sister Bell thinks I am going crazy... Then she looks at the spider and she screams! The spider then crawls BACK INTO MY GEAR SHIFTS. It's home I guess has been there for a while.  Sister Bell and I are screaming as we click the buttons to get it out. Finally it jumped out!! It was crawling on the sidewalk and BOOM!!! Sister Bell stepped on it. We looked at each other, while at the cars all around us looking at us funny as we jumped and screamed. We waved at them all,and  they were all laughing at us. Then me and SIster Bell laughed.

2. Two hours later.... I was putting on my helmet to get going to our next appointment when Sister Bell with huge eyes says:"... Sister Guilott.... don't move...." I then see a HUUUUUUGE Black and white FUZZY spider crawling on my visor of my helmet. I SCREAM!!! I try to take my helmet off BUT I HAD CLICKED IT ON!!! I am jumping around while we are both screaming to find the spider! I again finally take off the helmet... and I saw the spider staring at me in the grass... I ran up to our apartment, got the bug spray... AND SPRAYED ALL THE SPRAY ON THE SPIDER. It ran away.... 

I realized that Satan can be compared to a spider. He is hiding in places we wouldn't know he was there. We need to ALWAYS BE AWARE. And follow our perfect example, Jesus Christ. He will help us and keep us safe from the serpent/spider Satan. 

Okay. NOW!!! I went on an exchange to SPANISH WORK!! 

Hermana Dayton and I after the exchanges.  It rained on us!

Family... you would be so proud of me. I was able to give a prayer at dinner in Spanish and I was also able to give a door approach in espanol. IT WAS AMAZING!! I love the culture, and how everyone is SO FAMILY ORIENTED. It makes me think of how families CAN BE and ARE forever. For one moment, I wished I had been called to speak Spanish. But then I realized that this love I have for the people is just like Christ's love for all of us! I then told myself I would use this love and bring it to the ward I am serving in. Because of love, this week I have been able to see so many miracles and blessings I wouldn't thought was possible. Especially with one experience I would like to share. For private reasons, I will call our less active Sister D. 

Sister D is an elderly woman who has been trying to get to the temple. But is struggling with tithing. She has been upset and hasn't gone to church for months, and she has now fallen into bad habits. We were biking when we saw her and a friend out in front of her home. She saw us and tried to run away. We caught up to her and she was frazzled! We ask her about life and we see in her hand a cigarette lighter. At that moment, my heart broke. I was so sad she was doing that to her body as I knew she didn't want to smoke (and she is very sick as she is). She left and went inside, telling us we could come up in a minute.  Sister Bell had the impression to pray. So we prayed and the Spirit seriously told me: Love. So. I took that to heart.  We went inside and the whole time we were there we tried to love Sister D as Christ would. At the end of our visit, after sharing a message about Christ's love, Sister D gets emotional. She tells us everything. She then says she wants to change. AND OH BOY WAS THE SPIRIT SO STRONG!!! We were able to help her the best we could, sent a message to the bishop and now she is getting help and feeling loved by many.

I have learned that the THING YOU NEED IS LOVE. My little sister Caroline loves The Beatles and there is a song that goes perfectly with this week. "All you need is Love!" It's seriously all you need. I am so grateful for this week. OH BOY!! Just missions are the best thing ever! I am so grateful for all the wonderful examples in my life that got me to go on a mission. I love you all so much! GO WATCH GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!!!!!!!! :) 

Love Sister G 

We volunteer at a clothing drive and found this AWESOME shirt...we died laughing!

Fixing our bikes.  My basket broke and my lights.  So I had to buy a new rack and light set.

Sister Bell's birthday ... Our investigators made us a cake!  

Modesto: Flea Markets, Bug Bites and Miracles

Hello beautiful world! It's me, Sister Guilott!

Boy, can I just tell you HOW MUCH I LOVE MY MISSION? I seriously love it. I don't know where else I would be. This week has just flown by so fast! Ahhhhhh! We just don't know where it went! Sister Bell and I had a crazy week this past week. First, here is a MIRACLE from this past week.

When Sister Rugg and I were companions, she would tell me about this woman who she was never able to meet... Her name (we will call her) Sister B. Sister B had not gone to church for over a year. She was a recent convert.  She went to the temple every weekend, had finished over 100 names for geneology work in the temple, and was a power house! Then... she vanished. No one knew where she went. So, me and Sister Rugg would knock on her door every weekend to she if she would EVER answer. When Sister Rugg left, I knew that I must keep knocking on the door. I told Sister Bell the story, and we decided to keep on going. This past Thursday, at 5 pm exactly (no joke), I started chatting to Sister Bell about Sister B and what I would say to her if I did ever see her. Then we were biking home and I got the impression to go to Sister B's home. I tried to ignore it, seeing it was almost time for us to go home... I told Sister Bell and we decided to go. So we biked there... AND AT 8:40 PM SISTER B ANSWERED HER DOOR. HOLY COW!!! GOD IS SO REAL!!!!! I was shocked. It was seriously like I had met a celebrity since we had been trying for so long to see her (family back at home, imagine when I had met Chris Evans...That is how I felt!) She told us that it meant a lot to her that we had searched for her... But she told us to never come back. BUT OH MY!!! God answers our prayers and knows our true desires! We are still praying for Sister B. It took 10 months for Sister B to answer her door. I know that God has a plan for us and knows when others will answer the door. In Doctrine and Covenants 4;7 it says:"ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you." In this scripture it never says when. But I know that it will come. You just got to be in line with our Heavenly Father's will. 

Yeah. Also this this past week... I had gotten a bug bite that I thought was a mosquito bite... Then it started to swell... Bigger and bigger. I started to get a little nervous. It it now the fourth day I have had this bug bite, and the swelling has just started to go down! I prayed for a blessing. AND IT WORKED!! God is so real. I just love Him. He is so cool! 

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Here are a lot of pictures!

Love,

Sister Guilott :) 

These are apples!  They are HUGE!!!

Turtles!  They were only $5.00!  I wish we could have pets!!

Then we got a picture with the cute band!

Having hot chocolate with sweet Sister Hoff!  It was our first "colder" night....
Finally, I am used to this extreme heat and the weather is going to change??????

Getting ice cream from the Fijian Ice Cream man!

My foot on the right was twice the size of my left foot.  STUPID BUGS1
But I guess God created bugs for a reason....for my dad to fly fish?!  NOT bite me!

The first week on my mission until NOW!!  This kitten is not a kitten anymore!

Working Hard in Modesto

Me and Sister Bell

A wonderful baptism and I got to speak at it!

WOW!! Time is FLYING!!! Ahhhhh! I just want it to stop!! But sadly, God is in charge of time. So I will just do everything I can to do what He wants me to do!! This week we a week of Up's and Down's. I will tell you the Up's.

-To start off, we got to teach our new investigator Ada this past Friday! She is adorable.  She has two girls. Ada has been taught by the missionaries before, but decided it wasn't the time. Then she met us,  and now she is really into it. But the difficult situation is her primary language is Spanish. We tried teaching her, which was like teaching a five year old. But she was able to slowly understand everything! We did tell her: "We have sister missionaries in the area that are assigned to speak Spanish, Would it be helpful if you met with them?" She said no, she is wanting to learn English (and she is pretty good at speaking and understanding) and wants us to teach her.  She said we were cute and she liked us. So that was a plus! We invited her to come to church, but her girls were out of town for the weekend. And she said she would love her whole family to come with her. So we are praying she will come next week! It is incredible to see the Lord at work. And how we (missionaries) are just the tools!

-We also had a really neat experience last Monday night! We were biking home, and opposite from us was a woman biking at the same speed. We started talking to her from across the way, and then we all pulled over. Come to find out, she has all the same standards as we do. She believes in Jesus Christ and that there is a God. She also believes that there should just be ONE baptism and with the proper power. She has been looking for a church. And she was able to recognize the spirit as we were able to teach her! We are still trying to arrange a time to get back in touch with her, but it was just a cool experience of using the "find when you teach, and teach when you find" from Preach My Gospel! It is just soooo neat that when you just open your mouth to people, they will talk to you! And that the gospel CAN RELATE TO EVERYTHING!!

-Well, we wanted to check up on one of our investigators to give him some materials to read to prepare the lesson we will be having with him this next week. We had a cute couple from the ward come with us to be friendly and to fellowship. We knocked on the door, and it was not our investigator. But the man behind the screen was so excited and said:" OH MISSIONARIES!! COME ON IN!" Me and Sister Bell were VERY surprised. We found out our investigator's step dad (he lives with his parents) are LESS ACTIVES in our ward. So we were able to get to know the step dad and it was just great! The Lord is preparing ALL his children. I am just so grateful to have been able to have such a huge miracle like that occur.

-We were visiting a member from our ward who hasn't come to church for a while. She is from the Tongan Islands. And this was the first time we had ever been comfortable with her! We had a amazing discussion about obedience to the commandments and then talked about faith and testimony! She is just the best and has the cutest kids. We then looked across the street and saw that her kids were playing in her neighbor's yard and the neighbor was outside! We all went across and started talking to her. She is agnostic(she does and doesn't believe in God) and was thinking about finding a church. We were able to befriend her! She really liked Sister Bell and I and she said when we see our member, to invite her as well to join in for a bible study! IT WAS AMAZING!!!

God is real!

Oh! Let me tell you about my lovely companion Sister Bell! She is from Utah as well! She is such a sweet heart and has been out for 4 months(just a transfer behind me). We both had left our trainers this past transfer so we have been working together to be unified. AND IT IS WORKING! She is the best.

Okay. Here are the downs:

-A baby fly yesterday flew into my eye, it took me like 10 minutes to finally get it out. My eye is fine, but that poor baby fly has past on to the other side. Make sure when you bike, to BLINK a lot. haha.

-A BIRD POOPED ON MY LEG WHILE I WAS RIDING MY BIKE! Silly birds... ha ha...

Grrrrrrr........

I HATE BIRD POOP ON MY LEG!!

Well, I love you all and I am so grateful to be on my mission! I hope you have a great week!

LOVE,

Sister Guilott 

Protecting our apartment from scary hobos!  

What?

After a hard day . . . 

After a long hard day, you crash on the ground and eat pizza!

New Companion, New Investigators and New Miracles

Sister Bell and I emailing today! :)

Hello Beautiful People!

How are you all doing?  I hope you are doing okay!  This week has been a WEEK OF MIRACLES! The first day Sister Bell and I were together was truly a miracle.  We were biking and had so many opportunities to talk to people.  Instead of having only two conversations, we literally were able to talk to everyone we saw that day.  We were biking our first hour being together and a man called from his car, "Hey, are you guys Mormon?"  We biked over, and we have an appointment to teach his family about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  GOD IS SO REAL!  We have had many such tender mercies from the Lord.  YOU HAVE NO IDEA!

Our investigator William went missing . . . again.  They said he went back to jail.  So I don't know where he is.  But we are still praying for him, and I know that God will take care of him.

Our investigator Jannie is slowly getting there.  She wants to be baptized in October.  She is pushing it later, but we are helping her and inviting members to visit her and help her also.  She is so ready. She just needs to take that leap of faith and not worry what other people think.  Sister Bell and I also got a prompting to go see Sherry (she is the one visiting also with the Jehovah Witnesses).  She has been very confused about some of the things she has been learning from them.  We were able to teach her about modern day prophets and the spirit was so strong.  We have a return appointment with her.  I can see that God is preparing people who need the gospel.

This week we also got a referral to see someone so we went to the house, but it was the wrong house.  BUT, the man who answered the door was INCREDIBLE!  He told us about his life and he was depressed about a lot of things.  We were able to give him a Book of Mormon and invited him to pray and read.  He said he would and we are scheduled to visit him next week.  He is a really cool guy whose family is from Armenia.

We have other investigators and here are their stories:

Michael: He is the son of a woman in our ward (he is in his 20's so we might need to send him to the Young Single Adult Ward) but in the meantime he is very interested and wants to be baptized.  We are teaching him hopefully this Thursday.  So that will be great.

Ada: So, we were visiting a less active woman on Saturday and shared the talk that Pres. Uchtdorf gave about carrying his sheep home, and we asked her if there was anyone she knew that needed the gospel or help.  She then got a call from her neighbor, named Ada.  So this cute less active woman went over to her apartment, knocked on the door, and invited her over right then, telling Ada she should take the missionary lessons.  We found out she had been to the 6th Ward before and she said she would love to meet with us along with her darling daughters, Leslie (age 9) and Lela (age 10). We are hopefully teaching them this Friday.

All I can say is that I know God is real and He is mindful of His children.  I know He is!  I think that God made me go through some hard things these past few months so I could become what HE wanted me to be as I serve my mission in Modesto.  I am more aware of the things around me, more confident and I just want everyone to know about the gospel.  God loves us so much.  He seriously is just using me and Sister Bell as tools to help other people.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!  I am praying for you all.  God has a plan for each of us.  We just have to endure.

Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sister Guilott

Sister Bell and me - We are called the "baby faces" in the mission!

Before transfers . . . 

After transfers . . . we were just all switched around!