Time to move on:(

Hello Everyone!

I have news. I am leaving the Chippenham YSA Ward....I am sooo sad! I am kind of in shock that I am leaving and I am so sad that I am leaving also because everyone else is staying together and will be here for the Holiday Season. I cried a lot...but I will do it because I know that there must be a reason. I cannot express how happy I have been to serve in this ward and to be around so many great people and so many great examples. I have learned a lot here and kind of have grown up here...It's like leaving my home ward. I have no idea where I am going yet because I find out on Tuesday, but all I know is that I am not staying. I have had so much fun and it has been so cool to see progress in the people we are working with. I am very nervous that I could be moving to a family ward because I do not know how to be a missionary in a family ward. I mean...I have to be normal. Haha, but I guess it will be a fun adventure.

 And I always wanted to be a 2 Nephi 33:3 missionary.  "But I, Nephi, have written what I have written, and I esteem it as of great worth, and especially unto my people. For I pray continually for them by day, and mine eyes water my pillow by night, because of them; and I cry unto my God in faith and I know that he will hear my cry."

But I am so happy Sister Bunnell is staying because I trust her with all my heart to keep this ward and things going.  It was cool because last night we were in the area of the Bishop and so we stopped by with cupcakes (food always works! Haha) and we talked to him for a little bit and he was so nice to me. He told me how proud he was of me and that I have been really good for this ward. He thanked me for my service and said that I have done a great job. It was really cool to hear that from him and to feel like my service has been enough:)

Anywayssss, this week has been a good week. Minus the fact that the Richmond Marathon was this weekend and Sister Bunnell and I were smart and were downtown driving. We got stuck in traffic for over an hour. It was probably the worst thing. You know how I like to drive in traffic. I was so hungry and I was angry because people are mean and don't let you in. I honked at an old lady...then I felt so bad. Haha, it was a mess, but luckily we got out of it alive and well. For a while I was not sure that was going to happen...haha. Then we also had another funny experience when we were walking downtown to do a hot chocolate stand. Elder Thomas was carrying the table and he accidentally hit a pole and it really startled us and sounded like we were being shot at. We laughed really hard because you never know in Richmond. Man, I am going to miss this place! Good ol' downtown Richmond. Where all the people I love live:( But that is okay. at least we had a good week to hit me off in a new area. Missionary life is so funny. Elder Thomas says, "We live an inconvenient life" which is true. I mean as a missionary it is bad to get to comfortable because that means change is coming.

On a spiritual note, this week we had a cool thing happen with a less-active we met. She is the sweetest thing. She loves animals and actually has swam with manatees....I know,  I almost cried. But, we had a lesson with her at her house and her friend was there and her boyfriend. It was cool because when we were just talking her animals were going crazy and her boyfriend was not paying attention or her friend. When we started to read The Book of Mormon, they all listened and you could feel the spirit so strong. We hope that something happens with that and she comes back to church because she has a testimony of it still, just hasn't been coming. We hope we can make a good impression with her and remind her of the reasons that she joined in the first place.

I am sad to be leaving, but I do know that there is a plan. Sorry this isn't all that happy,  I promise that I am happy. It is just hard to leave so many people I love and go and start over somewhere new. Who knows, maybe I will be in brazil soon! Well, I love you all and I hope you have a good week!:)
-Sister Siepert:)

 Love the Art of Richmond!

 Nothing like a little Pedicure on Pday:)

 Favorite Yogurt of Richmond!

 Just a little drink:)

Gonna miss these sisters:)

The Best District!

RVA is the Greatest!

Querida Familia e Amigos,
Sorry i didn't email yesterday. But actually I am not all that sorry because we got to experience something way cool! Elder Sitate and his wife came and talked to my part of the mission yesterday. He is one of the seventies. We were in a meeting with him from 9 am to 3 pm. It was WAY long, but WAY good! I was so stoked! We all got to shake his hand and he greeted us by name. It was such an honor! He is so amazing and He and his wife are from Kenya, Africa. He told us all about how the church is growing in Africa and such. One of my favorite quotes from him was, "Heavenly Father is not expecting us to be perfect, but he just expects us to move in the right direction." He was so wise and just so humble. I was so impressed with him and how he handled himself. He and his wife are actually converts to the church too, so that was way cool to hear their conversion story. Another quote he said was, "The seed will only germinate (break the soil) in its time. It won't come before or to late." He is just such a righteous man and I was so impressed with him. Another cool thing too is that he came to FHE last night in the YSA ward! He spoke to all of them and I was so stoked about that! They needed it! What an honor, huh? And you know I love Africans!

Well, this has been a great week and full of funny moments. Everyday really is an adventure. Let me tell you about a few weird, but so funny things that happened this last week all within two hours. So we were out downtown just talking to everyone and such. And we first saw a girl walking her rabbit in the park and then some old Arabian man pulled parrots out of his car and we got to pet them and then he asked us out on a date. And then I got bit by a homeless mans dog. He was like trying to eat my skirt.....hahahaha, I LOVE DOWNTOWN RICHMOND! It is the land of the hipsters, so whenever I talk to people we always talk about how Oregon really is where the original hipsters started. They love it and people find it so cool that I have been to Portland...haha, I talk about Portlandia a lot here. It is so funny! But cool thing happened this week! We did a hot chocolate stand down at VCU and I get really nervous with those and I am not the best because they like bring me so much anxiety because it is right where everyone is on campus. And I was kind of praying in my heart that Heavenly Father would help me open my mouth and that he would help me be lead to those that are the elect and ready to receive the gospel and within five minutes this young man came up to me and said, "I have been searching for something. I really need something in my life." He then gave me his number and we actually set up an appointment. It was so cool and I feel so blessed that Heavenly Father knows my weakness and wants to help me make them strengths. I love when cool things like that happen. I really hope things go well with him and that he shows up at our appointment. Pray for him! His name is H B! Oh and K is doing great! She is so sweet and loves us and is really making friends with the ward. Last night after FHE she went for tacos with all the people in the ward! It made us so happy and the ward is really supportive to us! I love that! We met a new investigator this week. Her name is K and she is in the hospital, so she is not going anywhere! Haha, no she is the sweetest and just thinks that she has a million diseases, but they test her and she doesn't have any, but she is in a lot of pain and we got to pray with her and give her a Book of Mormon, so it is all good! I hope she comes along. Please pray that she will get better through the gospel and that she will be strengthened through the gospel because I promised her that.

Jo is gone:( It was so sad to see her leave, but I am more than excited for her! She will be an amazing missionary in Salt Lake. It amazes me that she has only been a member for just a little over a year and she is off on a mission of her own!! I got to see both my trainers this week. Sister N was at the meeting yesterday and I saw Sister R at a Sister training meeting. I can't believe that next week is transfer week already! I think though that I will stay here and I really actually hope that I stay here! It is the greatest place and if I had to leave from any ward I would want it to be Chippenham YSA! Also, I just love the people here way to much to leave this ward. It is going so great and the number of missionaries coming this next transfer is lower. Because of this I hope I get to finish training Sister Bunnell. We get along so great and we are just now in the flow. We are actually exercising. So that is good! Haha, we get up and go on a walk at a park near our house. I love her and I love all that she has done for me. I have learned so much from her. Last night we were parking downtown and I don't know if you know, but I do not know how to parallel park...I was freaking out so at a light we did a chinese fire drill so that she could park. It was funny and fun. We are just a good pair! I hope we stay together also because then I can see Megan when she drives through Richmond at Thanksgiving. Another perk would be that you can meet Sister Bunnell on Christmas through Skype. Do you realize how soon Christmas is?!! I cannot believe it!

We now have a YSA Center in the Downtown chapel. The Senior couple Brother and Sister Chuntz run it and are in our ward. It is the upper floor and truly an inspiring thing. We use it a lot and it gives VCU students a place to be and meet. It is located close to the VCU campus. The Chuntz's do a great job. It is truly a blessing to the students:)

It has been a great week and we are looking forward to another one!! Please pray for all our investigators! Love you all!

Have a good week!:)
-Sister Siepert :)

five months as a Missionary

five months and 3 1/2 months in Beautiful Virginia:)

 Jo on the left heading out on her mission to Salt Lake City. Sister Bunnell, Halina and Me:)

 Our newest ward Missionary, Hilary and me:)

Tudo Bem?!

I can't say this enough! VIRGINIA IS BEAUTIFUL IN THE FALL!! There are these big yellow trees and it makes my day everyday when I see them. We had a really fun P day last week! We carved pumpkins and we did a very missionary thing....We carved Mormon.org in our pumpkins. We also had a good Halloween. We stayed home and handed out candy. We have so much candy. It is really bad because now all we want to eat is candy. We are trying to eat better, but it just has not happened yet. It will! I mean I think the stress has made me lose some weight though. I am stressed like 80% of the time. You know me...haha, but It has been good and I was lucky enough to go on splits this week and talk to the Sister Training leader about it and she told me that I need to slow down. I just want to work so hard and go so hard, but I have to be careful to not burn myself out. Haha, but hey, I would rather go home exhausted right?

We only have a few investigators right now but they are the GREATEST! K is the greatest thing that has happened on my mission so far! It is so cool for her to really see how precious she is to Heavenly Father. I feel like that is something I teach a lot, to members and to non-members. Everyone needs to know that they are loved and that Heavenly Father is the greatest person to turn to when you don't feel it. K went to the "Fall Ball" and loved it! Mormon dances bring all the people in, I tell you!! Haha, everyone should invite their friends to the dances and I promise you that you will have a ton of baptisms and new recent. great. converts. She is so cool and I am so excited to see her progress towards baptism. R is also coming. She is still reading the Book of Mormon. At first she thought Sister Bunnell and I were nuns, ahahah. She said she was so surprised that nuns could wear normal clothes, but she is so cute and so great! She wants to bring all her Indian friends to church, so basically we will be baptizing all of India soon. Hahaha, both Sister Bunnell and I are both having dreams about Indians....Odd. We have some members in our ward working on referrals for us and that is great! I am excited to see how those pan out. Mission work is great!

We had Stake Conference this weekend and it was really good. Our Mission President spoke at it and asked for help from the members. It was way cool to hear him talk about that. Also the cutest thing ever was that the Young Men of the church were parking us and they all had sunglasses on and those things that they use to guide planes. I loved it! It was so funny and they also parked all the cars according to color! I was so happy! In our stake here we have 27 missionaries and in our ward we have 10 of those missionaries and every single set of missionaries have someone or a few set for baptism. Exciting stuff is going on around here!

Last Friday we went to a thing called "first Friday", it is crazy and I think I have talked about it before. This man told a few of the missionaries that he was Jesus Christ. He was yelling out all of these bible verses and had the scars...it was way weird and I was just a little freaked out about it. There is some crazy stuff that goes on in Richmond, for sure! Haha

I love the Ward I am serving in! Trying my best to keep working forward because this is the Lords work! We need to keep looking forward with faith.
LOVE YOU ALL,
Sister Siepert

P.S. My Mission President told me that all the Visa waiters before my group are now gone. I guess we are next.......I will keep you posted:)

P.S.S. I emailed a bunch of the Guys from the Roseburg Stake on Missions. I heard back from all of them! They are all doing great! So fun to serve at the same time as those awesome Young Men I grew up with! I am so thankful for the age change for Missionaries! Changed my life!!!!

Fall is Beautiful in Virginia

It is finally getting cold here and I love it! I am so grateful my mom sent me some sweaters from home and such. They are basically all that I wear these days. Fall is beautiful in Virginia and the trees are beautiful and the leaves are beautiful.  It looks like Oregon and feels like Oregon! I love it, but it also sometimes makes me miss home. Richmond is still good and dangerous. Haha, I found out this week that Richmond used to be ranked high in crimes and murders.....that is comforting, huh? I should emphasis the word USED TO! Like I know I have said this before, but you would be impressed with how not scared I am around downtown. I mean I am fearless these days, haha.

We had interviews with our mission President this week and I kind of was like I love this ward and hinted to him that he should leave my companion and I here for the rest of our missions. Haha, we will see:) Highly doubt it will happen but I would love to stay as long as I can:) At least til my VISA comes.

It is so great here we are getting fed like crazy! It is so great and we always have such a good time. I love being with the members and talking with them about life and laughing with them. I like that they think of me as a real person not just a robot missionary. It is such a good thing! We got a new senior couple in our ward! They are so nice and they had us over for dinner last night! There were some other members of the ward there too! I can't believe that J is leaving on her mission so soon! It blows my mind because I was here when she opened her call and now she is heading out so soon! She will be a great missionary! So Awesome!!

We set a baptism date this week! So exciting! She is the greatest!! She is roommates with another member and I love her too!  It is the coolest thing to see her recognize that Heavenly Father loves her and that he truly answers prayers!! She is super artsy and sweet! I love that! I love that she has a baby kitten named Gatsby that walks all over us:) Makes me think of kitty at home!

We have a new investigator from India! She is Christian and just wants to learn how to get closer to Christ so she doesn't feel alone. She is so far away from home but, she loves it here. She is a Dancer!! She dances contemporary and BOLLYWOOD! I am so stoked because she is going to teach me some Bollywood and she is going to make us some Indian food. She gave us some Indian coins, so that we would not forget her! How sweet is that!? I love her already!

I have come up with TEN things I have learned on my mission so far:

1. It is so much more fun if you are easy going. People are different than me and that is okay, there is no reason to freak out just because of differences.
2. I am really good at laughing. I mean two weeks ago was rough, but laughter made it better.
3. None of it is actually me doing it. Everything that is good that happens to me is either not me or is done to make me happy. Like when I teach and it goes well, it's not me. It is the spirit. And when we are in a restaurant and my favorite song comes on, it is a tender mercy from the Lord.
4. Trust the Lord. Since being here it has been hard not to call home after a bad day, but I have learned that I an pray for all things.
5. Be Happy. Things sometimes are out of our hands. If things don't go as planned it is okay!
6. People aren't all that scary. I can talk to strangers and be fine. Just be myself  and if they don't like that then that is okay.
7. We should always look around for people who look sad or down even if they are strangers. Go to them and take time for people. Love them like Christ would love them.
8. Driving in Richmond is hard (for me).
9. Love your companions through it all. They should be your best friend by the end of your mission.
10. Don't underestimate the Lord. He has our backs and if he wants something to happen then it will happen.


Well, as you can see I am loving it here and things are going good! I love being here and having the time to find the spiritual side of myself! I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Yo Yo, Friends and Family

It's me! I am still here and I think I might just be here forever....haha, but whatever it is fine:) I Love this Place! I know I have said that quite a lot, but I just love this ward! If I was in a YSA ward my whole mission I would be way happy! They are so fun and I get to be weird with them and they love it. I mean I am kind of scared to get put in a normal ward because I don't know how to act normal and mature yet....haha, so I hope I just stay here. I really hope I get to complete training with Sister Bunnell too! We are like the same person. We both have strengths and weaknesses to help each other out. It is just so perfect and I could not be happier.

This last week was quite a week...tested my patience a lot, but hey! That is what missions are like right?! Well at the beginning of the week we had six lessons in stone and we were so excited for them and guess what? Every single lesson that we planned fell through. It was great. Hahaha, it was kind of funny just because like we tried so hard and all of it didn't work out..but we did get to see a lot of other people. We visited a lot of less active, or recent converts this week. I guess the Lord just needed us to work with them. I mean we we had a busy week still, but it was busy in a much different way than we expected. But hey! Missions are that way and that is what makes it so fun! Sister Bunnell and I work just perfectly together so there was never any tension or weird stuff. I could not thank Heavenly Father enough for that.

Today I heard from a lot of people from my MTC district and it was just soooo great to hear from them all! four of them are now in Brazil. I am so happy for them and sad that I couldn't be there right now with them. Then again I Love it here. Being a Visa waiter is the most confusing thing. Like I am super stoked about being here, but then again I want to get down there to see how it is how things are going. Weird, but I will just be grateful that I have everything I need right now here in Virginia.

We have been working with the Bishop here a whole lot. It has been so great! We have a great relationship with him and it is so helpful! I love the ward and all they do for me. We get fed way more than we did when I first got here and people will just come up to us and bring us food or give us cool things. Like they want to spend P days with us and it is so cool to be around so many people who really love us. It feels so good to be trusted in this ward and I am so happy to be around so many strong people and to be uplifted on Sundays as well. It is just so great and I can not explain how great it is.

I found this really cool scripture this week! It is 1 Peter 4:12-13 and you should all read it! It is a very different way to look at trials and such. I love you all and hope all is good.

New Beginnings:)

Well I do have a new companion and I am training a new sister straight out of the MTC!! When President Wilson told me I would be training I kind of freaked! It makes me nervous but I am doing it! Her name is Sister Bunnell and she is the Greatest!! She is from Utah and her Birthday is today! We had a little Birthday party at companionship study! I really love her!! We have found we have so much in common. Like we like all the same movies, music and we both worked in the Special Ed in High School and come from very similar families. Basically all kinds of stuff. I don't feel like I am training her...she basically came trained! For example the first night she was here our friend M took us to dinner and she was talking to the server and just got all of his information for us to come by. I was sitting there and was just rooting for her!! She is so great and an awesome missionary! She is so excited about the work and that makes me so excited too!!

I am now driving, yep right downtown Richmond. It is kind of scary, but it is all good. Right now we are borrowing J's GPS for a while. It is so nice of her to let us borrow it. I don't know if Sister Bunnell will get one or not, but it is all good and I am not worrying. Something else cool happened at the Missionary Trainer meeting I sat down and guess who came in and sat down next to me?! SISTER ROMNEY!!! How cool is that? I sat by one of my trainers at a training meeting. We are just going for it and I am scared, but I feel like it will be  Okay. I mean Heavenly Father calls us where we need to be, right?! I feel way honored to be training too. It is so cool that President Wilson and the Lord trust me so much to allow me to be training.

Oh and yesterday I gave a talk in church. Yeah, this week has been kind of crazy...I mean we found out Sister Nelson was leaving on Sunday. Then on Tuesday night President Wilson called us to tell me that I was training and to tell Sister Nelson she was headed to Charlottesville!! She is companions with a Temple Square Missionary from Taiwan. She was so excited because she spent 5 months in China teaching. She has been wanting to learn Mandarin so bad! We now have two Mandarin speaking Elders in our mission and the work for them is EXPLODING! She is serving in the same area as those Elders. Then Thursday we had a day full of meetings. Our meeting was from 9-3. I have to say I loved it because we get to see all of the other missionaries! We came home and went straight to work!

Guess what the topic of my talk was???...Missionary work of course:) I was asked to teach the first lesson to the ward as if they were investigators. It was actually not all that bad! You know that I get super nervous and stuff, but I didn't even really write much down and I just went up there and spoke. It was so cool! I mean this whole mission thing has really made me brave! I don't even really know what it is? I just have been able to do all of these things that I never ever thought I would be able to do. Like I just spoke and I really was able to follow the spirit. I just let it guide me and it was fine. Afterword, the bishopric came up to me and just said the nicest things about my talk. I made me feel so good. you know there is no way, NO WAY I could do this mission without Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. They really carry me through the day and help me to keep going. Missions are way harder than I ever thought they would be and they are nothing I would ever suspect them to be. It is cool though how often we see how much Heavenly Father loves us. Just in the little simplest things. Like moments that are so unexpected. It is the greatest thing! We see it all the time!

We have some new investigators and that is so awesome!! I love them all so much!! Our ward had a baptism this week. It was soooo great! She is so sweet and my old Zone leaders came down for the baptism because they taught her. I was so Happy to see them. They were awesome and it was cool for them to see me, and know how I was when I started and to see me now training.....what the heck....I am training!

I am just working hard and trying my best here. My companion and I get along soooo great and I am so excited to start this transfer strong! We are finding with faith!

 Happy Birthday Sister Bunnell!

I love Richmond!

Will I stay or will I go?

Well Last night President Wilson called to let us know what was going to happen at transfers this week. Well.....Guess what? I'M STAYING! Sister Nelson is going to get transferred. We have 37 new Missionaries coming in this week! There is a huge possibility that I could be training and that makes me nervous. I sometime feel like "I don't know what I am doing." Let's be real I have only been out four months. So kind of a funny thing happened when we got the call. We were super surprised because we don't usually find out until Tuesday. So we were really taken by surprise. Well when the call was done I set the phone on the floor. We both started to freak out! I mean Sister Nelson was freaking out, I mean screaming and being a 20 year old girl and I was freaking out being a 19 year old girl. Then I picked up the phone and we had been recording a minute long message... To the Mission President. I hung up right away and I told Sister Nelson. We couldn't stop laughing. In the end we called the President Wilson and he said yeahhh, I listened to the whole thing. Hopefully he doesn't think I am a bad missionary or undignified.....ooopsie. Sister Nelson and I are sad to be separated...but new things are in store and I am SO HAPPY to still be in the ward.

Conference was soo good! We watched conference at the church because we weren't allowed to watch it anywhere else. It was kind of fun it was basically all missionaries. kind of like a reunion! I loved it!  I mean as a missionary you get so SO excited. My favorite talks were Ulisses  Spares, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Timothy Dyches, Jeffery Holland, Henry Eyring, President Thomas S. Monson, Adrian Ochoa, Terence Vinson, and Russel M. Nelson. I think that is like almost half of the talks. One thing I loved about conference were all the accents! I think that is sweet because that means that the church is really growing around the world! My favorite quote from Conference was, "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith"- Dieter F. Uchtdorf. So good!

Something cool happened at conference though! We have a neighbor named D. She is soo great! She loves us! She always comes out with her dog and talks to us about Jesus and about how blessed she is to see our smiling faces everyday. She says that we have this glow that she loves. She is very Baptist, but loves us. Sister Nelson and I were on exchanges with the sister training leaders on Friday, So I was not with her, but she brought some pumpkin bread that I had made to her and got the courage up to invite her. And guess what!? She came to the evening session of Saturdays conference. We sat next to her and she kept saying Amen, Hallelujah and all that jazz, it was so great!! When it was over we looked over at her and she was just in tears. She sat there and told us of this overwhelming peace she felt watching that and sitting near us. She basically explained what it was like to feel the spirit. She felt it so strong. We talked with her for a while and she told us we were a blessing to her a million times. She was sooo great! We saw her last night as we came in and she said that she told everyone at her church she came and watched conference with us. She talks about us all the time and it is just so cool! She loves her church but who knows. Keep her in your prayers.

I had a fun thing happen this week! I got to go to lunch with Mariela from Roseburg. It was sooo nice to see someone from Roseburg. I was a little afraid it would make me homesick, but really it made me the opposite. It was interesting in high school we never talked about God. We talked about God and Jesus and how we both have become closer to him. We will probably get to have lunch again. She just happens to be going to college here in Richmond. So fun to see her!

I am working hard and this morning we got a media referral, which is sooo sweet and my first one ever! I love it here and I have the craziest Deja vu...it is so cool, because I think the Lord really has been preparing me my whole life for this moment. Thanks for all the love and support, I can't wait to read the conference talks all over again!

Love you all,
Sister Siepert:)

Oh and I am starting to read Matthew, Luke and John to get ready for the Christmas season, maybe you could start too.