Singing like Whitney Houston!

heyyyyy everybody!!!!

So this week was the usual craziness. it snowed big time and i have had it confirmed to me yet again that i am a california girl through and through. i do not like the snow. why do i go to school in Idaho? hahaha just kidding.... kinda. so we had a special meeting when a general authority came to speak to us on friday and my two companions signed us all up for a musical number. so yes.... not only did i have to sing in front of the entire mission but a general authority. to my surprise it went really well. i was so nervous i was going to barf. then i said a prayer and asked to be confident. i was sooo stinking nervous still. then they called our names and it was showtime. i was shaking as i stood up out of my seat to walk to the front. i was thinking "oh geeez... this oughtta be good i cant even keep myself still enough to walk, let alone sing!" then with every step i took i got calmer and more confident! by the time i got to the front of the chapel i felt like stinking whitney houston! hahaha prayer works people! it was so much fun and i loved it. i dont think i will be singing in front of 300 people any time really soon but maybe in the future. it was an amazing meeting! Elder S. Gifford Nielson came and spoke to the whole mission! then after he spoke to the whole mission we had a special leadership training by him. i am learning amazing things out here. so yesterday was a crazy day at church. we had 3 investigators and 4 less-actives there. i was running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get everyone someone to sit by and such. so then it was time for the meeting to start and i got to sit dow. as the sacrament started to be passed out i looked around and realized that there were more people in church than ever. it was awesome! i looked around at all of these people taking the sacrament. some of them for the first time and some of them for the first time in years. they were all remembering our Savior and what He did for all of us. at that moment all of my stress and worries went away and I realized just how amazing this is. I get to help people change their lives and come closer to Jesus Christ. that is my full time job right now! I love seeing these miracles. so i was at a family's house last night. i have been working closely with them the whole time i have been here and we are finally seeing changes and they are happier. i feel so connected to them like they are part of the reason i am on my mission right now. i am going to hate leaving this area when i do. but i can look at all of the people that i have come to love sooo much and feel good about my time spent in MArtinsburg West Vriginia. i love being a missionary! MAKE GOOD CHOICES!

Love,

Sister Swisher

Air Guitar?!?!

hey ya'll!

 

ok yes i said ya'll. i have been in west virginia for almost 5 months now and i am gettting an accent. i keep saying ya'll and "a stone's throw" and other things. i am surprising myself! so we had yet another crazy crazy week. we had a sister go home on friday so we are now in a trio and we will be convering two areas for the rest of the transfer which is 3 weeks. the awesome part is, our third companion is sister jones from the MTC!!! we are having a BLAST! i love it! so last night my companions were both very stressed and overwhelmed with having to cover both areas. so i was just sitting there thinking how i could help them. (surprisingly i am not stressed about it, probably because i have done it before) so all of a sudden i turned out the lights and blared the music and busted out the glow sticks. yuuup we had a dance party. i may or may not have hit the wall with my elbow then fell off the couch. it was great. everyone felt a lot better when we were done. so we keep seeing amazing miracles with the missionary work in our area. miracles are happening every day. we see a lot of people changing their lives and it is changing my life. seeing this many amazing things happens definitely wears me out though. haha i feel like i could sleep for 100 years. but that also may be due to the fact that there is a personal trainer in the ward and she trained us this morning. it was sooo hard. we got out bums kicked! well let me tell you my funny story... things like this only happen if you are a missionary in west virginia. so we were at this less active family's home. they have a ton of stuffed deer heads all over. i have been there a million times. i never notcied that one of the deer heads was fake and plastic. so i noticed it the other night and asked about it. they said that is buck. he sings! i was like no way! so i waved my hand in front of the deer's face and it started singing "sweet home alabama!" and sister bingham and i started dancing and i had my air guitar out and everything. the family was laughing at us crazy sister missionaries. when we left the home i was like "did that really just happen?" i love this place so much and all the people i have met here. i know the Lord has put me here at this time for a reason. i love every single day of my mission and dont regret anything. what a wonderful time! i love you all! MAKE GOOD CHOICES!!

Love,

Sister Swisher

Hump Day!

hello every one!

So this week was pretty great and crazy busy as usual. so we went on two exchanges back to back . so i wasnt with sister bingham for 4 days! its so good to have the band back together. so i hit my hump day this week. my mom sent me a hump day package with camel stuff about a commercial that came out while i was on my mission. so i dont really get it but all the members in my ward think its just hilarioius. i have been thinking a lot about being at the half way point of my mission. Here are my thoughts:

- i feel really old

-i feel like i have been out for 3 months max

-i have the dark circles of an 80 year old woman under my eyes from how tired i am

-i wear my hair in buns on top of my head most days

-i have so many amazing experiences that i could only have had on a mission

-these past 9 months have been the hardest/funnest/greatest times of my life

-i still have a whole 9 months to enjoy being a sister missionary! :) can i get a whoop whoop?

Seriously where does the time go people? well let me share a miracle i had while on an exchange with a brand new missionary this weekend. well we were getting out of church and about to go see a lot of peopel we had planned to see. when all of a sudden i got this thought that we needed to go see sister kackley. i have never met this lady before and she hadnt been to church in years. i was like look here sister we are going to go see this sister right now! told my GPS where to go and off we went. the whole time we were driving there i was just like holy cow i cant get to this lady's house fast enough. she really needs to see us. well when we pulled up and knocked on the door, she let us right in. we were chatting and finally she said "you know what? i was sitting here wishing to go to heaven and leave this world. i was so sad! so i told God to speak to my heart. not ten seconds later.... you sisters showed up at my door!" seriously Heavenly Father hears every one's prayers and knows what we all need. He loves every single one of us! its so amazing to see the miracles that come from prayers! i love being a missionary and being able to be a tool in the Lord's hands. PRAYER WORKS! Well i love you all and hope life is great for ya! MAKE GOOD CHOICES!

Love,

Sister Swisher

 dog yoga calendar :)

Happy 2014!

Hello!

Ok so it was a great new years week. On new years eve and new years day we weren't allowed to do the normal missionary work. on new years eve we had to be in our apartment by 7pm. so we had 3 hours of nothing to do and missionaries get bored really easily because we are always crazy busy. so sister bingham and I painted our nails, played phase 10, and of course made a music video to church music! I know what you are all thinking... you wish you could have ditched your new years eve plans to be a part of such an awesome party. hahaha. well then we went to bed at 10:30 and woke up to 2014! crazy! I cant believe that it is already 2014! where is the time going? well ill skip to the miracles we saw yesterday! so we have been working really hard with a lot of less active members and they keep saying they will come to church and then they don't show up. so on Saturday night when we were finalizing plans and rides to get people to church I realized I was already thinking that some of them were not going to show up. it came to me that I had to have the faith they would come to church or they really weren't going to show up. so in true sister swisher fashion I started dancing around our room saying they are TOTALLY coming to church tomorrow!!! then I was like oh I need to pray that they will all come! so I got down on my knees and was like sister bingham come pray with me! all of this happened within like 30 seconds so she was like what the heck? hahah but she prayed with me anyway. well we woke up to an ice storm so I started to doubt again but then I remembered that I had to have faith! well guess what?? miracles happened!!! we had 4 less-actives show up to church that have not been to church in a really long time! it was crazy awesome!!!! we were so stoked. they all loved it and felt the spirit :) and my faith grew 3 times bigger that day! the power of prayer is real and faith precedes miracles!!! I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY! where else can you see these kind of miracles happening? I just love helping people to draw closer to our Savior because that is when we are truly happy :) well MAKE GOOD CHOICES and HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Here is to an awesome 2014 full of miracles!

Love,

Sister Swisher

SPIDER!!!!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! i know i did! i was able to Skype with my family and it was great to catch up with all of them and see their beautiful faces! (well at least my mom's and my sister's faces are...) on Christmas eve we helped a lot of families made cookies. we had a zone activity in the morning. all of us missionaries had a white elephant party. everyone came away with pretty cool presents.... stickers, a mini ping pong set, a cake..... what did i get? oh i got 6 cans of tuna and a picture of some elder in our mission being a dork. hahaha worst present there! we had a nice Christmas eve dinner with a really cool family in the ward and we went caroling. then sister bingham and i came home and opened our Christmas eve pajamas and then listened to Christmas music and drank hot chocolate. it was a really nice Christmas eve. then we woke up the next morning and opened our presents, had breakfast, got ready and then headed out to our many Christmas appointments. it was awesome! i felt so loved this holiday season. the members here are so great :) i just found out about transfers today and i am staying here for another transfer and will still have sister bingham as my companion. i am soooo excited! that means i will be in west Virginia for at least 6 months. i love the people here and we see so many miracles every single day. we are getting more sisters into the mission so we will probably be going on more exchanges next transfer. i am excited to work with more and more sisters. i love being a missionary! so funny story... last night we were planning for the day and i was in the middle of a sentence when all of a sudden i see something move on my desk. i look down and its a huge spider! i scream my head off and book it out of the room scaring poor sis bingo half to death. she was like are you going to come kill it? i was like uhhh heck no you have to smash it before i come back in! she was semi- freaking out trying to smash the huge spider. she smashed it and life continued. lessons learned from the spider catastrophe: 1. we are a couple of little girls 2. i can run pretty fast in a skirt when my life is at stake :p 3. i screamed louder about the spider than when i hit the deer with the car..... something isn't right there haha 4. i hate spiders. well happy new year everyone! MAKE GOOD CHOICES! :)

 

Love,

Sister Swisher