My Companion is the Bomb.com

Hello family and friends on the internet. I'm alittle behind in updating Cassie's blog, I apologize. Here is her blog post from November. It's mostly about her companion, if you couldn't tell by the title. Hope you enjoy. 
   
      This transfer so far has been the bomb.com!!! My companion is Sister Paongo. She is from Reno, NV and is the best! :) She is Tongan and part Samoan. We were in the MTC together where she turned 22 during our stay in the MTC. Sister Paongo is adopted out of a family of 13 kids into a family of 3 other siblings not including her. (This confused me alittle bit, I'm not exactly sure of what she's actually saying here .... does she have 13 siblings or 3 .... who knows?!) She is so strong in the gospel and knows this church to be the true church of christ! She is so funny and loves to do my hair; which I love!! 

     Also some new things that I found out that I love: TAZO passion herbal tea and oatmeal!! So good!!! I love that tea! Haha! The work is moving along. I am starting to really love missionary work. I am finally getting the hang of it; and I know now what to say and what not to say. It's weird to think that I have a year left. These past 6 months have flown by so fast! We will have 3 baptisms on November 9th. We are so excited for that. Well I love all of you. Remember we can do hard things. ~ Mark 10:27

    ~Love~ 
         Sister Blake

Here's a few pictures of Cassie and her companion that she sent. 

Transfers

I have been transferred to the El Paso, Tx! It is so different here than Albuquerque. Its hard to explain how it is different. Well one way is that almost every other person speaks only spanish. The ward I am in right now boarders Juarez, Mexico. I usually see more of Juarez than El Paso. Its crazy! My new companinon is Sister Daines. She is from Northern Virgina. This is her last transfer, so I am "killing' her in missionary terms. The word is progresing! We have a baptism on the 28th of Sept., Her name is Jackie. She is 17 years old and LOVES the gospel. I can't wait for her baptism!! It will be amazing! We have also extended a baptism date of Oct. 12th to a part member family. We know they are ready. And they know it too! They just wanted to pray about it as a family. So I will keep you up dated on that. Funny Story, we went to church on Sunday and we were greeting the members and talking to htem and a man came up to me and was speaking english and I could not understand him at all because of his thick spanish accent. I just smilied and noded and said yeah and um, and yes. I hope I didn't agree to give him $1 million dollards! Haha. I hope I get the language of it.

So I wanted to tell everyone my favorite talk from the Sept. 2013 Ensign. Oh it was a good ensign this month. My favorite talk, I am pretty sure it is my all time favorite Ensign talk, was " The Healing Balm of Hope' by Vaughn E. Worthen! Oh it is SO GOOD! I love the whole talk. I highlighted like the whole thing. My favorite quote from it is from Pres. Monson and it says, 'At times there appears to be no light at the tunnels ends-no dawn break the nights darkness. We feel surrounded by the pain of broken hearts, the disappoointed of shattered dreams, and the despair of vanished hopes...If you find yourself in such a situation, I plead with you to turn to our Heavenly Father in your faith. He will lift you and guide you. He will not always take your afflications from you, but he will comfort and lead you with love through whatever storm you face.' Also later the man said, 'Hope is fed by faith and provides a foundation for charity.' I know that to be true! Thank you all so much for the letters and packages and emails! You are the best family and friends any one could ask for and I am grateful to know and love you all!

Love- Sis Blake

Can you believe I have been out 5 months! I sure can't

4 months

Hello Family and Friends on the Internet. As promised here is the first of Sister Blake's blog post.

Can you believe it! I sure cant. I can't believe I made it this far during all my sickness. I thought for sure I was going to be going home, but here I am. Still doing the work. 4 months have flown by when I look back at it, but the days seem to drag. So I'm in my third companionship. This companion's name is Sister Rager. She is from Riverton Utah . She turned 20 a couple of weeks ago and this is her 2nd transfer. I have grown to love the ward and area. I have been serving in since I have started my mission. The ward is amazing and I feel as though I have become part of their ward family. Currently Sister Rager and I are in a car, which I love! Sister Rager has a bad knee and the biking made it worse, so a blessing in disguise. It sure does make me happy. But because of the car, the work has hastened. It only takes about 8 minutes to drive from one end to the other end of our area, when before it took 35 min on bike! We are currently working with a lot of less actives. I have grown to love every one of them. I wish to have them come back to the fold of god. I have been reading and studying and pondering a lot of lehi's dream, thinking about where do I fit in this dream. Because I know we are all part of it. And the thought came to me that I think missionaries are sent out in the mist of darkness to find the lost sheep. Of course this is not scripture, just my thoughts. And not what we teach. But it is what I have come to in my pondering and studying . I thought it would be a cool thing to share .
On my mission so far I have learn to love reading the ensign. Oh how I love the ensign! I have learned so much from the prophets and apostles and the general authorities . There were so many great talks and stories in the newest ensign. August 2013. 2 of my favorite talks in this issue was ' A new writing' by elder Melvyn B. Arnold of the seventy and ' move forward in faith'. In the 'Move forward in faith' talk, it references Ether 12:6. ' dispute not because you see not, for he receive no witness until after the trial of your faith '.
I love this scripture. It is so true! Sometimes trials happen and you don't know why they are happening , but if you hold fast to the rod, to god, then ' peace be into thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes . They friends do stand by thee, and they shall hail thee again with warm hearts and friendly hands.' D&C121:7-9. I know this to be true.


Love Sister Blake

Public Apology

Hello Family and friends on the internet! First and foremost I would like to apologize to my wonderful sister for not keeping up with her blog and secondly I would like to apologize to you wonderful people recently I have been a little MIA when it came to updating this blog. I've been too caught up in everything that's been going on in my own life which kind of made some things fall short, so ..... sorry again?! Fortunately I do have a couple posts for ya'll of which I will post in the upcoming days.  But just so that it's not all me .... here are some photos Cassie has sent. 

                                            A few Sisters in the area went to the Zoo.

                                          Cassie being silly. 

3 Months

Another short but sweet message from Sister Blake: 

I can't believe I have been out for 3 months. Every day feels like a week! But every week feels like a day. A couple of weeks ago I never thought it could get any hotter. I was terribly wrong!  The thing about this area is that yes it is hot in the mornings ; but its death from 2-7! The good thing about being on a bike is that I have lost about 20 pounds and I have a nice tan! I don't think I have ever been this tan in my life. So with my 3 month mark; I have also had my second transfer. I stayed in this area, and my trainer Sis. Stucki became a trainer again and went down to La's Crises and got a brand new Jeep! My new companion is Sis. Grigg! She came from El paso.  She said her area was right on the border. She and I came out together. We were in the same district in the MTC.  So some how we are supposed to be training each other?!! The blind leading the blind and all that. But the work has really started to pick up which is great. The members are great and are willing to help. Thank you to everyone who has written me. Those letters mean the world to me!

  Love,

 Sister Blake

Increase your Faith

Hello Family and Friends on the Internet!!! Here's another post from Sister Blake. As always any letters, emails, and/or prayers are welcome. Sister Blake recently was admitted to the hospital for enlarged nymph nodes above her appendix which has cause her much pain and sickness. She was released from the hospital shortly after and is back into the swing of things (this isn't something that is mentioned in her post) but please keep her in your prayers. 

      This week has been an amazing week! We had Zone Conference this week. Many lessons were taught and I received tons of personal revelation! One of the main points of this Zone Conference was a quote from President Hinckley, that states: "Tell the missionaries that if they have more faith they will have more success." I took this to heart. So my goal after I heard that was to have more faith!
      I am going to throw in an excerpt from a personal letter Cassie sent me just because this goes along with what was said and it kind of proves a point: After Zone conference I wanted to do just this .... just have more faith. So once we got home from dinner Sister Stucki had a bad headache so she laid down for 20 minutes and then we started companion study, since we didn't get it in the morning (because of Zone Conference). I told her "let's just stay in tonight since you're not feeling well" and she agreed. 30 minutes into our companion study we both said we need to go tracking. So I looked at the map, picked an area that I haven't been to yet and with only an hour and a half left in the day we went knocking. By the end of that hour and a half we got 5 referrals, 1 Book of Mormon passed out, tons of cards passed out, and a return appointment to a lady who is really interested!!! ... So I have learned as long as you give more faith in him, show confidence, and be happy the Lord will give you success!!!
      I have done just that (have more faith) ever since and because of that we have had the best week so far. One of our investigators committed to a baptismal date and we have 3 new investigators! And of course many more things but those were just the high points. (This seems redundant and unimportant to say but don't look at me I just copy and paste people .... now to wrap it up.) I know if you just apply more faith that you will have more success and that can go with any aspect of your lives. I challenge you all to seek and apply more faith for missionary opportunities. It might be scary but it will be worth it! I promise you it will be worth it in the long run. 

       Love you all! And miss you with all my heart! 
                                          Sister Blake

Sister Blake's first transfer

Hello Family and Friends on the Internet. Here is the newest and latest from Sister Blake. This one's short and sweet today, so here goes:

Who called it? I know there is someone out there who said,” I bet Cassie will be sick her first week.” Who ever did, I owe them a candy bar or something because they were right. I was super sick this past week. And had to stay in the apartment. When we did get out we went to some appointments that the people didn’t show up to. It was a rough week. The life of a missionary my friends. I am in the Academy Heights North Area, its in Albuquerque. My trainer is Sister Stucki. I am her first born and she has only been out 6 weeks, now 7 weeks herself. Lets just say she is amazing! I am in a bike/ walking area. And dang! I'm out of shape! My area is hilly for sure. Can I just say it is so hot and dry, but the members are great here! They help us out so much. The light at the end of the tunnel  is Brother Reese. He is a less-active member who lives in our apartment complex. He is so amazing. We are re-teaching the lessons to him. He is so nice. He told us he waits up for us every night to make sure we are safe. He said we are his adopted daughters. He is the best. And he came to church! Anyways miss you all!! 

         Love,
            Sister Blake