An older lady we tracted into last week that sang songs about how much she loves Christ!!

 My birthday cake!!! and Sarah, a YW from the ward!! I LOVE HER.

Sis A and me

 The Elders snuck into our apartment (creepy) and decorated for my birthday!! It was a scary but happy surprise!! 

We helped a Less Active in her garden and afterwards made fruit pizza! SO GOOD.

Anyone want some pig?

May 16, 2016

Hello Family!!!

I feel like I sound like a broken record but I can't help but say that I feel like it was just yesterday that I was sitting here writing yall! The weather here has been FREEZING.  Not really but freezing to me.  Its Tornado season and I guess its normal for it to be super hot and sunny one day and then super cold the next. What is up with thaaat???

We have been super busy this week! One major highlight was The huge Pig Roast that the Capps family puts on every year!  It started out as just a fun get together for the people the missionaries here were teaching along with the Capps and now its a huge Missionary event! Members are welcome to come and bring their nonmember friends and we as missionaries invite everyone we are teaching and so on and so forth. 

The Capps have a huge farm with aton of pigs so once a year they kill a pig and put it in the ground on top of 2 feet of hot coals and cook it for 24 hours. Then they take it out and its is some delicious meat!  So we invited EVERYONE.  We had flyers and just handed them out like candy.  It was awesome.  It was a huge success too! there were over 100 people there and way more than half of them were nonmembers.  SO FUN. 

Mi Cumpleanos!  Thank you so much Mom and Dad for the package! It was so fun to get that! Our Relief Society President (who I adore) surprised me with a huge cake from Kroger that said "Happy Birthday Sister Moline."  That was sweet and such a tender mercy!

On Friday we had our Zone Meeting and it was awesome.  I love getting together with other missionaries and sharing Emmaus Experiences and hearing about miracles others are witnessing. Miracles happen people!! 

******!!! Hooray for ****** because she just got a job at Taco Bell!  We have been praying for her to get a job recently and I couldn't be happier because Taco bell is the love of my life. So yay for her! Except not yay for her because she didn't come to church. Again.  Oh I was so sad! I was so devastated when she told us she had to go into work at the same time church started.  It is the saddest thing when people don't realize the importance of church.

A few funny/crazy thinggssss:

1) A crazy Jewish man that we met not too long ago texted us randomly and said that he has been trying to locate the lds prophet's number so that he can request a baptism in the Salt Lake City temple. This guy is not all there in the head but this just cracked me uppp.  We laughed for a good minute and then asked him if we could meet up with him and explain baptism!

2) An awesome member in the ward got up to bear his testimony on Sunday and started out with "This Church is the kingdom of God yall."  It was one of the best testimonies I have ever heard!

I am in love with my life! Seriously, I am the happiest person.  I don't know why either.  We are not teaching many people and no one got baptized and the work is still pretty slow. This week was kind of rough too.  But I am so happy!  During studies I have been really focusing on the Book of Mormon and reading it first before I do anything else.  This has been a blessing.  I have noticed how excited I get to just open it up and have some one on one BOM time.  Also we got the General Conference Ensign this week and I have been devouring it.  Just inhaling it!  Sister Anderson and I had a really cool discussion just about how the gospel is helping us be better people.  Who we want to be and who the Lord wants us to be.  I know the Gospel is true.  This gospel is the good life! No matter what may be going on in our lives the gospel brings us happiness.  I felt that especially as I got to partake of the sacrament and reflect on my Savior's Atonement.   And that I get to share that with people! Tracting is no longer a pain or a burden, but something that I look forward to. Because I am giving someone the chance to say yes to the gospel of Jesus Christ. To say yes to the light and happiness the gospel brings! I am living the good life. I am living the goood life for sure.  

Sorry this email is kinda lame but I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!! Sure love you Moline's rock and missionaries rule!

Dios les bendiga y les quiero mucho!!

Hermana Molineypants

All our Spanish speaking missionaries.

MOTHERS DAY YAY!

May 9, 2016

Hellloooooo My beautiful wonderful family.  It was SO fun to see your faces and  talk to you even for a little bit.  I so needed it and just soaked it all up. 

Not too much to report this week but Sister Anderson and I had a few memorable experiences that are worth sharing!!

While tracting we met a lady named ***** who has a ton of connections with the church and knows a lot.  When offered a Book of Mormon she said "Do I have a Book of Mormon?? Girls I have a BOM alright. With my name engraved on the front!!"  Sure enough its true! We asked her if she read any of it.  Her response, "Yeah sure I have Levi takes his friends and goes to South America."  This made sister Anderson and I burst out laughing!!!! hahaha so funny....And there ya have it folks. Book Of Mormon in a nutshell. 

Experience numba two!

Also while tracting we asked a lady for a referral.  She pointed us to a lonely lady, Dolly, an 86 year old woman who lives alone and loves Jesus Christ.  We went right on over.  She is really hard of hearing so we shouted at the top of our lungs the entire time. haha She sang us many many songs about how much she loves Jesus.  Some she even made up right there on the spot!  She gave us some words of wisdom that we should make up our own songs because it just cheers ya right up and brightens your day.  She was SOOOO appreciative of us coming over, many many times during our visit she said "I just don't know how I got two beautiful ladies right here talking to me about the word but I just LOVE it!!"  Haha  we got a return appointment and are super excited to teach her!!  We will see what happens:) 

Update on *****!!  Remember her?  Super Elect 28 year old newly wed!!  And on a baptism date for the end of May!! holla!  ****** is our Miracle May baptism!! But sadly we have run into a roadblock...Whilst talking to her, it came up in the conversation that she and her husband don't have a marriage license.  Well that opened a can of worms,  She explained that she and her "husband" are common law married.  NO *******.  So she's fake married. We've been praying she and her "husband" will be willing to tie the knot before her Bap date.  We will see.  I have faith!!!  She loves everything we teach and says it makes the most sense to her than anything she has ever heard.  SO MIRACLES CAN HAPPEN.  I will keep ya'll updated.

This past Friday we had a mission wide Spanish Conference for all the Spanish missionaries in the ABM!  Another Sister and I were asked to give a training on "Serving in an English Unit as a Spanish Missionary"  And there were a lot of other trainings on other things.  Teaching us how we can be better Spanish missionaries here in the ABM.  it was SO GOOD. It got me all hyped and pumped for not only Spanish missionary work but missionary work in general!!

Ready for an EMMAUS EXPERIENCE?

Saturday was a loooong day.  At the end of the day we went to Walmart to grab some quick groceries.  While I was grabbing some sweet potatoes I saw a member.  We got to talking and the sweet lady was telling me about how she is really really struggling.  It was a sad conversation.  However as we were about to check out she insisted to buying all our groceries.  How sweet is that?

It really warmed my heart.  That makes such a huge difference in our lives!  Truly.  And the fact that she is going through a really hard time in her life and still reached out and was helping us, going out of her way to serve.  I was so grateful and humbled right then. 

ALSO,  we walked up to our apartment that night and there were brand new forks in a Walmart sack hanging on our door knob.  Someone knew that our janky apartment only had 2 forks and someone bought us new forks!!!

People are SO KIND!

So go give! Go serve! Look outside yourself this week.  Make someone's day!  Be THEIR Emmaus experience like how these people were ours.  That is what I am going to try and do this week.  Do it with me!!

I love you all!  I know this is the Lord's work. I KNOW this is His restored Gospel. I know he loves us and is aware of our needs.  I will never, no never, no never forsake. 

Sure love ya Molines ROCK and Missionaries RULE.

and don’t forget!! roll tide rollllllll go BAMA

p.s.  Some members in the ward see me and sing the song "Joleeene" By Dolly Parton but say Moline in place of Jolene. hahaha

con mucho amor,

hermana Jolene

Athens has hundreds of cute antiquy store with cute trinkets and stuff.  It took all the will power of my soul not to buy this adorable flamingo.

walking on the grindddd

A super cool murial here in Athens underneath a bridge.  SUPER COOL. 

  Gotta love southerners!

a selfie with ***** after one of our last lessons!!

  Selfie with *****

Sister Anderson and me! 

   Visiting ***** in the hospital.  I LOVE HER WITH MY WHOLE HEART. Look at her face!! So cuuuuute haha

  I got chocolate from Switzerland from Elder Joshua Richmond who is all the way in France!! So YUMMY

Sister Anderson and I playing tennis last pday!

Joy Spreaders aka Missionaries

April 25, 2016

HELLO WORLD This weeks letter will be a short one but it was a great week! The spring weather is so wonderful!  I want to be outside all the time.

The bicycle was our bff this week. Sister Anderson and I biked ALOOOTTTT.  Needless to say my bum bum is feeling the repercussions of it hahaha  But it was a great workout and SO many people are outside gardening and loving life.  Smiles all around :)

This past week *****  has been in the hospital getting her knee replacement so went over to the hospital to see her with a few members.  She was high as a kite, drugged up on morphine and other pain relievers and was sooo happy to see us! While we were visiting with her a nurse came in to see how she was doing and offered ***** some tea, *****  replied and said, "No thank you ma'am I am a Mormon and I don't drink tea." haha GO *****! She told us that "Us Mormons are just delightful people, I love being around all yall." So cute. We all love *****. Before we left I asked **** for some advice since I am young and inexperienced what would be some advice that she, a wise and amazing person, would give me! She said "Get an education! Stay in the church and continue to build your faith.  I have strong faith but I want it to be so much stronger.  I want people to see it when I walk by." 

She is an awesome example to us all.  What if after we talked to someone we don't really know and after the conversation was over they just thought, that person has some great faith.  They really know who they are. Or even just walking by someone could notice it. I think we should all strive to be like that.  Not in a "oh look at me and all the faith I have." But really try and be a light to others.

With the weather being wonderful and all that for some reason the missionary work struggled.  Since our highest high with both *** and ***** being baptized we have had a small pool of investigators but a lot of potentials!  We have been finding finding and finding.  But for some odd reason every lesson appointment we had planned this week fell through. EVERY SINGLE ONE. A lot of our potentials we are working with have had some crazy things happening to them! Don't know if they are true or not but none the less!  We just kept the faith and kept on going. 

One more thing!  We had dinner with a family in the ward yesterday.  They are an awesome family whose grandparents live right behind them in a mobile home.  They are true southerners.  That being said, for dinner we had a true southern hillbilly meal. Biscuits and chocolate gravy.  Which is exactly what it sounds like.  Warm biscuits with butter with chocolate gravy doused all over topped with some more butter.  It honestly made me kinda sick watching the butter melt off although it was DELICIOUS.  Although it seemed more of a dessert than a dinner meal hahaha.  Southerners do not shy away from dousing their biscuits in something sweet and syrupy. Sop ’em if you got ’em.

It was a southern experience for sure!! Gotta love Alabama.

Like I said earlier we did ALOT of contacting this week and talked to some amazing people.  We met a really nice couple. The man's name was Joseph Smith...no joke!! He was so funny and nice and knew that his name was the name of someone famous in the Mormon Church.  He told us that he was working in Nashville in construction when two Mormon Elders came up to him and when he told them his name their jaws dropped and he said "No I am not him but I am a Modern day prophet."  That gave us all a good laugh and a neat intro to a cool discussion about Prophets.  SO funny!!
Another lady we talked to at a yard sale was such a hoot, we told her who we were after talking for a few minutes and she just yelped and got so excited!! She said "They should call all ya’ll Joy Spreaders in stead of missionaries!! You just filled my soul with Joy this morning!!!"   So I guess that is what we are! My name is Sister Moline and I am a Joy Spreader.

I love you all!!! This is truly the Lord's work I know it is! I love spreading joy and meeting so many wonderful people.  God's hand is truly in this work.

Con mucho amor,

Sister Moline!!!

Sureloveyou Molines rock and MISSIONARIES RULE

and of course roll tide roll