Britney will arrive in the Salt Lake International airport 3 weeks from tonight. August 12th, Wednesday, at 9:30 pm.
We welcome family and Brit's good friends to be there. We will be there by 9:00 p.m. securing our place at the bottom of the escalator. We will forewarn airport security about the potentially crazy group of loved ones and likelihood of animated powerful noises authored by a proud and supportive grandmother.
We have decided to stay in Utah after picking Brit up. She will be released on Thursday morning which will surely be a difficult moment for her. She has loved and embraced everything it means to be a missionary. We will be remaining in Utah until Saturday when we will host a family/friend gathering to honor Brit and hear her report her mission.
There are many reasons prompting the change to Utah from Idaho for this gathering and none of them include purposefully creating difficulty for loved ones. It simply had to be. Fortunately, we have loving and understanding family.
I will post further details in short order.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
3 weeks from tonight...
Monday, July 6, 2009
Arriving August 12th...
She just loves sister Garcia! 
Monday, May 25, 2009
Email May 24, 2009
Today as I welcomed Sister Garcia to our companion study and announced that it was the first day of transfer, Monday the 25th of May I thought..."...that sounds like a holiday."
We had an enjoyable week as a three-some and enjoyed attending transfer meeting without the pressure of being transferred, getting to see our other friends and hear president's talk...then within the last two days three of our current investigators agreed to baptismal dates, we discussed how blessed we have been and we know it has to do with us trying to do our best and to be obedient.
We are also very excited and know the service of another missionary is helping with one. He is on a mission here in another mission in the Philippines and his mother has been being taught for years. We taught her the plan of salvation and I talked about that day that we will stand beside our Heavenly Father and about the time we will enter his Kingdom with our friends and family, and talked about her son on his mission and how that is exactly what he wants and he also imagines her there. She told us she would decide after she finishes reading the entire Book of Mormon. Then we finished teaching her and I asked her how she felt about our lesson and all she said was "Sister Landrum, I will get baptized before you go home, let's set a date and you can write to my son and tell him." We are very excited to write to her son and tell him. We can sense a missionaries just how much that will mean to him.
I met a very interesting family one of the days I worked with a member and Sister Garcia and Pairat worked together. We didn't have anymore scheduled appointments and it wasn't time to meet up with them yet so I started talking to people outside and met this woman with four little boys standing with her. As I talked to her, her husband came outside and from their door motioned toward the pamphlet I had, he wanted one. I re-focused my attention to him and asked if we could share a message. They invited us up to their porch and we discovered their neighbor is an old man and woman. The man baptized a couple years ago but since we've been here he has been ill and has not come to church. His wife agreed to listen to us also and we continued in teaching their neighbor. I started by teaching about the Godhead and knew from the start that he is a bible scholar because he had many questions and personal ideas. He is not however affiliated with any religion. His questions lead us into parts of lesson two and I was not sure where it was all going to go because I was having a hard time directing it towards one topic for our first lesson but felt like just continuing on how we were until he got to his big thing. He believes that any religion that is the true church of Christ should be actively concerned for the temporal welfare... and he brought up Malachi and Tithing so I opened immediately to third Nephi 24 and started testifying about tithes and offerings while his old man neighbor started telling them "they have a supply!" It was kind of funny... he listened now without question unlike before and I taught him about the church welfare program, tithing and offerings and then testified that we have living prophets who direct this work and closed by giving him all three of our pamphlets to read. He read them all before the next day and we taught all of lesson one and gave him a Book of Mormon. The interesting part is what he said to this neighbor of his, not directly to us... on the first visit he said "all they have taught me is almost exactly like "The continuation church of Christ" and I got from that a part of an idea about what he is up to which was confirmed at our second visit when a paper with a drawing of a church logo fell out of his bible and so he showed us. He has been creating his own Church because he doesn't find any others to have all the truths he believes in from his research.
So, they weren't there the next time we returned and I don't know where it will go but it was quite the experience and I felt so strongly the truthfulness and fullness of our Church, of the Gospel of Jesus Christ here and of what I teach. All that anyone is searching for is here and all the answers if you will only search them out. I don't know all the answers myself, I still have questions, but I have a firm testimony of the most important things and I know that as each of us continues to seek learning "even by study and also by faith" we will come to know all the mysteries of God and be prepared to receive his fullness.
Well, I hope Savanna made it to Utah alive and that Mom's leg is healing. Olivia and I will have to race when I get home... I bet I'm SUPER slow now :) we'll see. Give me a couple weeks I'll get into my real exercise program again -- all of my arm muscle is gone I think, haha.
Congrats on the graduations, birthdays coming up and SUMMER BREAK. They are about to start school again so it's funny that you're just ending. I'm sure the next few months will go very fast for you since it's break -- have fun.
LOVE,
Sister Landrum
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Email May 18th, 2009
Hello - We had our first Darasa baptism on Saturday. I realized that it could, possibly, be the last baptism that I witness on my mission due to the fact that they need to attend church at least four times before baptized and overcome all addictions for longer. We have a couple of investigators right now that I am hoping to have baptized before I get home, or right after I leave, but I guess we'll see what happens; whatever the best timing for them is.
My companion was especially excited because it was the first baptism of her mission, I'm glad we've had such quick success in this ward -- they all are so helpful. We have them working with us and yesterday we went on splits for the first time, my companion felt comfortable with having me leave her now and being in charge and we had a lot of appointments, and I worked with one of the RM sisters - it's always nice to hear others teaching styles and learn from them.
This week Sister Pairat is working with us until Friday when she will get her new companion at transfer day. We will probably go on splits almost every day. I will work with a member and they will work together. I'm excited to find a lot of new investigators this week.
We have our mission tour in two weeks with Elder Edwards and I need to read about five chapters a day to finish the Book of Mormon on the scheduled date, I find every spare minute to read and it's really great. It will be my third time through in English while here on the mission and I think I'll focus on Tagalog a little more my last two months, it's slower-going and longer in general in Tagalog so we'll see where I get, I plan to finish it once I get home though.
Did I tell you the other great thing about our baptism on Saturday. Two of the baptisms, one was a child of record, were the nephews of a member we met our first week here. He hadn't been to church of years and we taught him a lesson about the importance of the Sacrament, and about how that is the main purpose of why we should be at church every single week, because we need the sacrament every single week. He started coming to church that very week and was ordained a priest soon after and then able to baptize his two nephews. Him and his sister worked with us this last week and I noticed in his testimony that he always talks specifically about the importance of the sacrament, the very thing we taught him about and he put into action and thus gained a testimony over which he now is sharing with others -- how wonderful.
Well, I'm out of thoughts for the moment so thanks for the email and for Maddie's joke Love,
Britney
Email May 11th, 2009
My companion is really great at English, isn't she? Haha...my last companion wouldn't speak English to me at all, even if I requested she do just for a minute or requested she practice...so I don't know how good she is at English -- haha. My second companion was like that also, but we got by off of her English for the most part and I know my trainer was good because I couldn't speak any Tagalog then...my third companion is also very good at English but we always spoke straight Tagalog so I could learn faster, she was good at that my current companion likes English :) haha...always Tag-lish I even speak Tag-lish now.
If you sent a package, well I sent a letter about the garments for Sister Abad only, even if it was only two-five..she only wanted five. She was the original sister that asked a long time ago and then you sent the trial pair and it was a very wrong size for her but she paid for them anyway so I just kind of felt bad never getting her any at all that were the right type and size. They like mine because they are not as hot and really easy to hand wash but they don't sell them here -- but that's what one of my letters I sent was about. As for anything else, starbursts so my companion can try them because I told her stories about how they were my favorite when I was in high school but she doesn't know what they are -- besides that I can't think of anything so maybe it really wouldn't be worth it. I guess I'm feeling like three months isn't so long that I'm going to be missing much. Almonds and dried blueberries :) haha and if you sent me a can of black beans I wouldn't probably give it to Sister Anderson as a going away gift because she was really jealous that I had some and she also loves them.
I think it's funny that Tagalog sounds asian to you -- like Chinese or something. I keep trying to remember how it sounded to me before I understood it, but now it sounds like English does kind of because it's just words that have a meaning now, not strange sounds that sound funny. Sometimes words still sound really funny to me, but words in English are funny to me also.
Well, you said my email doesn't need to be too long -- that's good because I'm not sure what more to say at this point. We have zone interviews tomorrow so I might get more mail and we found out in our email from the mission today that before transfer day we will be a three-some with one of the sisters whose companion is going home on Sunday -- a five day three-some, how fun :)
Okay - thanks for the expensive call :)
Love Britney
Monday, May 11, 2009
"Happy" Happy Mother's Day
Well, our family had a WONDERFUL 2 hour phone call with Britney last night! We went to my office and used my speaker phone. It was great! She sounds like she is very happy and well.
Did you know that to call the Philippines you use 14 minutes every minute! Where we don't have a land line we bought an AT&T calling card. Wow - 2,000 minutes doesn't go as far as it used to! LOL. We actually didn't even use the entire card because as Wendy put it 22 years ago when she and I had a similar lengthy call... Brit's teeth were floating!
What a wonderful night with all of the girls gathered to be able to each take time visiting with Britney. But, after the 4th sister opened by saying, "Hi Brit, how are you?" Brit finally said, "the same as last time I was asked a few minutes ago..."
Britney spoke tagalog to us quite a bit and it is amazing how smart it makes her sound! We were able to speak with her companion for awhile also. What a sweet and complimentary young woman. She said, "Brother Landrum, you look so young... Sister Landrum, you look beautiful and have such good fashion sense... Maddie, you are most beautiful...".
Sister Ruth Ann Garcia is from the Philippines. She went on to thank us for such a wonderful daughter. She said that 3 of her siblings had served missions also and that they told her how important it was to have a good training companion. So, she prayed hard before her mission for the right training missionary and God blessed her with Sister Landrum and that she is so thankful for her..." She went on and on about how great Britney is. I already knew this fact but to hear how genuine and appreciative Sister Garcia was touched my heart. I believe that she did pray and that Britney was the answer to her righteous desire... that is a significant and wonderful thing to know. I believe that they are working hard together and that they are being blessed for it. Britney's influence will not end when she returns to us in 3 months.
What an appropriate and blessed way to celebrate Mother's day. Wendy deserved every moment of it.
