Exchanges, Exchanges, Exchanges

Sister Lawrence and I go on so many exchanges!  But I love it! This week I didn't go anywhere, Sister Lawrence did all the traveling, so I was in Fair Oaks! IT was kind of scary at first, but it worked out.
On Tuesday we did an FHE lesson with one of our investigators, she loved it and was so excited to start doing it on her own. When we saw her on Thursday she said that she was going to start doing it on Friday, and she had already decided that they were going to start watching the Bible videos on lds.org. She wanted to start at the beginning and watch a few every week until they'd seen them from beginning to end. At church yesterday she told us that the first one was a huge success. At first her kids were kind of running around and not paying attention, but by the end they were asking if they could watch more!
On Wednesday and Thursday we did exchanges, I was here with Sister J. She is the first sister that Sister L trained! We decided to go to an apartment complex that is really close to ours. We went in the afternoon and weren't able to find anyone, but we decided to go back that evening when people were home from work. We went back after dinner, we were trying to decide which building to do, and Sister J said "First building, middle floor," so that's what we did. No one answered on the middle floor, but we could her some people talking on the top floor, so we went up there. There were 2 guys and a girl about our age up there hanging out. We had a really neat conversation with them. They seemed pretty interested! When I gave one of them a Book of Mormon he said "I was going to ask you if I could have that book like 10 seconds ago, but I didn't want to take your book." Then when I gave him a card with our number on it and told him to call if he had any questions, he said "If I call you will you really come back and answer my questions?" I was so excited!!!
On Friday and Saturday we did exchanges with the Spanish sisters, I was in Fair Oaks again with Sister T. She is really great! We got along really well, and did lots of tracting! We knocked on one door and the lady told us that she had read about Mormons on the internet and that we were wrong and that the Book of Mormon didn't happen. She said that someone was writing it and "John Smith" stole it. It bugged me at first, but I decided that there's no point in being upset about it. She'll figure it out eventually.
Saturday afternoon we had an awesome lesson with one of our progressing investigators. He mentioned baptism for the second time, so I'm thinking this week we will set a date for him!!!!!
Well, those are pretty much the highlights of the week!
Love, Sister Fleck ♥

Sister Fleck also said that transfers come up on March 14th.  So anyone that has her direct address be aware that you don't mail things that would get there too close to this date and miss her.  We should know the following Monday if she has an exchange or not.   Thank you for all the wonderful support she has received with letters and emails, she loves it and is enjoying writing everyone back.    Love Helen

One Month as a Missionary

This week was great! I had fun, learned a lot, and taught amazing people, of course, that is the life of a missionary!
The beginning of the week was a little slow, nothing spectacular happened, but then we were able to get into the home of a less-active/part-member family that we have been trying to contact since I got here, so that was great! They were really nice, we are hoping that we will be able to continue meeting with them.
On Wednesday and Thursday I was in Owasso with Sister E on exchanges. Sister E is great! She is a powerhouse, I learned so much from her! On Wednesday morning Sister Shumway (the mission president's wife) was also doing exchanges with us. While she was there, we taught this amazing investigator that the Owasso Sisters are teaching. Sister Shumway was amazing and said a lot of really great things. She was worried that she said too much, but she had a really good impact on the investigator and Sister Shumway was able to help her a lot. We had dinner with that investigator and her family. Her son is a convert, he was baptized when he was 14, he's 17 or 18 now and he just finished his mission papers! Woohoo!! MORE MISSIONARIES!
On Friday we did more exchanges. This time I was in Supulpa with Sister . Neither of us can drive, so we got rides from people, which was kind of neat. I know the Sister that gave us a ride was excited to be out with the missionaries all day. She dropped us off at their apartment for dinner, so we ate and then waited for the ride that was supposed to take us back to meet our companions (exchanges are usually overnight, but this has been just a day exchange).
I guess when they told her (the Sister giving us a ride) the plan there was a little misunderstanding. About half an hour after she was supposed to pick us up we gave her a call to see where she was, and she said that she was at the church that we were meeting our companions at! It was like half an hour away and we weren't sure what to do! She ended up driving back to Owasso, picking us up, and then driving back to meet our companions. I felt so bad!! It was kind of funny though, when Sister G and I realized what had happened we were laughing pretty hard.
Saturday was Zone Training, which was awesome! I was able to learn a lot! I did a musical number with two other Sisters, and three Elders, it was the EFY medley, it was pretty good even though we didn't have an opportunity to practice. They also asked me to bear my testimony. We found out that Tad R. Callister was going to come and speak to us, the cool thing is that it isn't for a mission tour, he just called President Shumway because he realized he hadn't been to the OTM yet, and asked when would be a good time to come and talk to us!
Yesterday was a really good day. At first we were a little bummed because one of our investigators wasn't at church. After Relief Society we grabbed an extra hand out for her and decided to go drop it by her house. When we got there she was telling us how she spent all day cleaning the house because her husband and kids had gone out of town (she had to work the day before so she wasn't able to go with them), and she wanted them to come home to a clean house. They are in the middle of some remodeling so the house had been a little disorganized for a while. We were able to help her with a couple of things that she didn't think she was going to have time to get to. She was so grateful and excited that we thought of her. We were happy that we had listened to the prompting to go see her so we could help her out!!
I know that Heavenly Father doesn't give us promptings that we can ignore, we need to listen to all of them! We get them for a reason and Heavenly Father really needs us to follow them!!
I hope you all had an amazing week, and a happy Valentine’s Day, Have a wonderful week! Remember that I love you all!
Love,
Sister Fleck

Sister Fleck has her badge :D

MTC District badges

Pictures Finally!

This week has been kind of crazy! I think I mentioned last Monday that I was going to be doing exchanges, maybe not...
Sister Lawrence is a Sister Training Leader and on Monday she had some training at the mission home, two other Sister Training Leaders came to Broken Arrow and dropped off their companions, then the three of them went to the Mission Home and the three of us stayed here. It was a lot of fun! We didn't have many appointments on Monday or Tuesday, so we tracted a lot and OTMed (Most missions call it OYM (Open Your Mouth) but we call it OTM (Open Thy Mouth) because it's the Oklahoma Tulsa Mission, get it?) at a gas station.
On Wednesday we started teaching a new investigator ---, she is really sweet.
On Thursday I was in a trio again! Sister L and I were with Sister S from... I can't remember, it's on the other side of Tulsa... anyway... Her companion had to get surgery on her hand, so Sister S trioed with us so she didn't have to stay at the hospital all day doing nothing!
On Friday we did exchanges AGAIN! Since Sister L is a Sister Training Leader she has to do exchanges with all the sisters in our area. This time I went to Tulsa with Sister G! She is one of the Spanish speaking missionaries! She and her companion Sister T were actually called to English speaking missions, but President Shumway wanted to open a Sister Spanish mission, and they both speak fluent Spanish! It was kind of a crazy day! I had no idea what was going on most of the time, since I don't know Spanish, so I just kind of sat there and smiled!!
Sunday was church (finally), but at about 9 we were a little worried that it was going to be cancelled again because the roads were pretty icy, (the 9:00 ward actually was cancelled). Fortunately we're at 1:00 and the ice was melted by then! I was pretty excited to go to church!
I love the work I am doing here in Broken Arrow, Sister Lawrence and I work hard, harder than I've ever worked before, I fall asleep almost as soon as my head hits the pillow. I know this is where I'm supposed to be and I know I'm doing this work for a reason!!!
Love,
Sister Fleck

Pointing at where we are going

Elder's in my district

 Elders in my distric

Playing with bubbles, celebrating hump day in MTC

I washed my clothes with K9 I am such a geek :)

Last night with district at MTC

Funny faces with district

Me and Sister P, my MTC Companion

In front of the temple

 In front of the temple

Sisters from my district

My companion and I in front of the temple 

Tulsa, Oklahoma :D

Blowing bubbles

The Elders in my district

The Elders

The Sisters

The Sisters

The whole MTC Zone

Bubbles, we liked the bubbles

My MTC District

Crazy Week

One week ago I was still in the MTC!! How weird is that??
On Tuesday everyone in my MTC district left, except for Sister P and me. Tuesday we had classes, which were two on one, it was kind of awesome! We also had our last lesson with our TRC investigator ---, who I'm almost positive is a real investigator. ON SATURDAY SHE COMMITTED TO BAPTISM!!! We told the people in the TRC office and they said that they would hook her up with the Provo missionaries so that she could get the lessons that she needs to get baptized!! (: So excited!! 
We left crazy early Wednesday morning and had a layover in Denver, where I got to call home. It was really nice to be able to talk to everyone. When we landed in Tulsa President and Sister Shumway were waiting, it was so surreal to finally be in Oklahoma!!
We went to the mission home, ate lunch and then President and Sister Shumway and the Assistants (notice that I said Assistants not APs because the only abbreviation we use in the OTM is OTM :D) talked to us a little bit. Then, Sister Shumway let us take a nap!!! HOW NICE OF HER!! Haha!! After our nap, we ate dinner, talked a little bit, then we got our area and companion assignments!! (Notice that I'm making you all wait, this is not nearly as long as I had to wait! I was the second to last one that he told! It was funny though because the last one that he gave out was the girl that had been saying all day "I just can't wait to find out what my first area is!!" Okay, I guess I'll let you know now!
I am in Tulsa East Zone, Fair Oaks area! It's in this town in Oklahoma called Broken Arrow. It's really nice, I think most of the residents are in the middle to upper middle class financially. My companion is Sister L, she is a Sister Training Leader, and she is really nice. She's been out for about a year, and she's been in Fair Oaks for 4 transfers! 
On Thursday we got to our areas! Since I'm in a subdivision of Tulsa it was only like a fifteen minute drive from the mission home, which was really nice, I know some of the areas are much longer drives. We got to our apartment at like 7, so we did personal and companion study, ate lunch and then went out. We had a few appointments, and we dropped by some investigators and less active houses before we went to dinner.
We had dinner at this house where three sisters live (like, actual related sisters, not sister like Sister Smith or whatever). They call their house The Coop, like a chicken coop, get it!!! They are so nice, and so funny!! 
On Friday we got an opportunity to go tracting! No one was home at the first two houses we knocked on, the third house was my suggestion, we knocked and waited, I was starting to think no one was going to answer, but then someone did! Before we could even say  "Hi! How are you?" They slammed the door in our face without saying a word! Sister L said that has never happened to her before though. Apparently people will usually let us say our bit before they tell us that they're not interested. We handed out three copies of the Book of Mormon and also gave them mormon.org cards that had our number on them. I'm still praying that at least one of them calls us!
On Saturday we had a baptism, it was really great, but there was a little bit of a fiasco! When we go there we turned on the font, but whoever told Sister L how to do it told her wrong. So when it was like halfway full we realized that the water was super cold!! We were trying to figure out what to do, and eventually Sister L had to put on a jumpsuit and get into the font and flip the drain so that we could fix the balance between hot water and cold water!
The rest of the baptism was soo good though! The girl's family came (they weren't taking the discussions or anything), and her mom was crying, so maybe we'll hear from them at some point!
It started snowing at about 7:30 on Sunday, church is at 1 here, so at about 11 the bishop texted us and said that church was canceled. It stopped snowing at about 12, and Sister L and I had the okay to drive, so borrowed the Bishop's snow shovel and shoveled people's driveways. I was expecting a ton of snow since church was cancelled but there was only like 2-3 inches... It was kind of hilarious to be honest.
We had dinner at a member's house and they took a picture of us to text to our moms (Mom, attach the picture, please ;)) Mom texted the family a little bit, they were telling me what she was saying, it was kind of weird to be in the same room as someone that was texting my mom and knowing that I couldn't text her. I didn't make me homesick or anything, it was just kind of bizarre. 
I really love it here in Broken Arrow. The people are so nice and the church is pretty big here, the ward is (well an actual ward, not a branch) like the size of a Utah ward! I mean, the boundaries are a lot bigger than they would be in a Utah ward, but there are a lot of active members, AND the ward split like a year ago! 
I know that this is where I am supposed to be and I can't wait until I have a better grasp on what's going on and I can really start to serve the Lord.  I love the Atonement so much, and before I started my mission I never really realized how much it was a part of everything we learn at church. I am so grateful for that. I would be nothing without His sacrifice for us. I want so badly to live with my Heavenly Father and my Savior and without the Atonement I wouldn't be able to do that.
I love you all so much, you are all in my thought and prayers. I'm so grateful for all of your love and support, I wouldn't be here without it, I know that for a fact. 
Love,
Sister Fleck ♥