ASL or Bust

I'm half way through my mission! What the heck! 

Ahhh this week has been great! We are keeping really busy the Lord is truly blessing us for being obedient. Yes this transfer we have what they call a tenth key, I think it should be called a 12th key as we already have a 10th and an 11th. Anyways this transfer if you get up on time, get studying on time, home on time etc etc. You get a 10th key. Which ever zone get 100% will get a pizza party! Yes and President (who is the boom, by the way) said we will get REAL root beer. Yep we are going to get that. 

We have 2 new investigators! YAY! And I like to think that all the blessings we are receiving are related to that.

We get iPads tomorrow!!!!!!! YAY!

Oh, another very, VERY exciting thing: They have 4 sisters and 2 ASL elders in the next few transfers coming and both the ASL elders are going home this transfer. A Spanish elder who I just happened to know from the MTC also knows ASL and I are going to be training the new ASL missionaries when they get here.  YES, I get to go ASL!!!! How awesome is that!??? I am very excited, despite the fact that I will be leaving my amazing area and companion. I know the Lord has called me here for a reason and I am glad to answer his call.

Well thats all the time I have for today friends.Hopefully I will have more time next week! I have more time to write letters now so I will do that instead of emailing. Send me your addresses and I promise you a letter. Some of you already have one on the way ;)

Mission Blog Post

The DC North mission has a training day after they have settled into the mission. Here's a blog post from Lani's training day:

http://calledtoserveindcnorth.blogspot.ca

D E A F

Washington DC North ASL missionaries
Lt to Rt Elder Schoemig, Elder Wood, Elder Winkler and Sister B

This week Lani learned that she will be training two ASL sisters fresh from the MTC starting mid Feb. She has mixed emotions about this as she LOVES the Seneca Ward and her new companion but she is over the moon excited to serve in a deaf unit and use her ASL more. 

The ASL missionaries had a meeting with the mission president this week to plan for three new missionaries that are coming to DC on Feb. 18th. Elders Schoemig and Winkler are going home at the end of this transfer and Elder Wood and Sister Bascom will be receiving the new ASL missionaries. 

Elder Wood and Lani were in the MTC together. He saw the sisters signing amongst themselves and introduced himself. He was not called as an ASL missionary but he has members of his family that are deaf and knows ASL. He was hoping to be able to work with the deaf too.

She is being given a huge amount of responsibility with these next two transfers. Not only will she be training. She will be having to get to know deaf members spread through out the whole mission and beyond. She will be fully immersed in a signing environment and is still learning how to serve in a more traditional way as a missionary. Please keep her in your prayers. 

Hump Day

April 24th marks the halfway point of Sister Bascom mission. 

Here's to nine more months of serving and growing.

WE have Pictures!!!

Sister Cooke posted pictures of the January Arrivals today.  Here's our loverly Sister Bascom on the DC North mission blog.
http://calledtoserveindcnorth.blogspot.ca

No Time

Dear Family and Friends,

I'm sorry I haven't emailed my emailing time has been cut in half in the new mission, but thats okay just means I have to write more letters, so I need your addresses. Letters are better than emails anyways so :)

Well let me tell you about my new mission I'm in the Washington DC North mission. Well being outbound it kinda awesome.DC has been great!  I miss Temple Square (TS) is someways but not in a lot of ways. Like MEMBERS! Ahh member are awesome! We have just been shown such love and support from them. They are so willing to help us. Feels like I have a family again. Okay TS was a family but I don't like having that many sisters my age... Still adjusting to working with Elders though. 

I love being assigned to a ward the P's are my favourite I think. Sister P is so very very sweet, her cooking is great too. So healthy. We have been there twice to eat now and she came out to contact with us the other day. They were living in the middle east before here. Her husband works for the world bank. They are very strong in the church, their oldest is 14 and youngest almost a year I think. They all have been very loving and supportive.

We have had some great experiences. The first two doors we knocked on in our new area both said we could come back :)) It was a total blessing. This area hasn't been tracked really well in about 10 years. The ward is divided into two areas and we the sisters are out in a small town called Poolesville and the surrounding communities. There is a church on every other street here too! They are very prepared humble people we are very excited!

Sister Johnson and I have been working really hard and have been having a lot of fun. She is the closest companion I have ever, the long car rides help :P With all this working out I have been doing with Sister Johnson I have been needing to eat more and I'm trying to eat really healthy, I think God is trying to tell me something with me having all these vegetarian and health nuts for companions. My pants are actually getting a little loose on me now! :D The trick now is to keep all this exercising and eating healthy up after sister Johnson and I are no long companions. 

I'm glad I will be able to teach more and more deaf people. For the next 4 months I can FB (Facebook) them and teach them that way and then when I get back to TS I can VP (Visual Phone) them :) (Our local elders have contacted some people that ASL is their primary language and they can't teach them as they don't know ASL. Lani can teach anyone that uses ASL any where in the world so we can connect them and voila problem solved how to share our basic beliefs.)

The weather has been cool here it is suppose to snow this week and last time it snowed all the missionaries had to stay home... :( Dislike! I hope that doesn't happen we have too much to do!

Sorry this is one of my shorter ones but I got to go now!

Sister Bascom

Poolesville

We got a very short email from Sister Bee today. In her email she said she is not a fan of flying. She hit it off with her new mission president. She also indicated that she has much shorter email time in this mission. Because of this snail mail may be a better option for any one whom wants to send her love. Her new mission address is in the side bar on the home page of her blog. 

We learned her companion's name is Sister Erin Johnson and is from Colorado Springs, Colorado. She loves to exercise. Just before she was emailing they were doing yoga at a member's home.  They both have birthdays coming up. They are born a week apart. She is in her 5th transfer. With Lani being new to this mission Sister Johnson is the senior companion. They are both new to the area so it will be the blind leading the blind this transfer. https://www.facebook.com/erin.johnson.1671

They are serving is the Seneca Stake which is in Montgomery county the top norther part of the DC North mission.  The are assigned to the Seneca ward which can be found in German Town MD. The area they are assigned to is in the country side of Poolesville, MD. I have attached some pictures of this pretty area. Not so pretty in January.:/  Poolesville is a conservative upper middle class community that's pretty vanilla. 

She feels that we all see and hear more from her as this allows the missionaries to use Facebook for contacting and teaching. She is deciding whether she will clean out her current Facebook account or if she will start a new one. If you get an invite from a Sister Leilani Bascom it our good ol Lani Lou.

For those of you that don't know DC North mission has a unit of our church that conducts services in ASL, for the large deaf community in this area. There are presently three elders serving and teaching in ASL in this mission. Two of which go home next transfer. The remaining elder is Elder Wood whom Lani met in the MTC.  He was not called as an ASL missionary but has members of his family that are deaf and knows sign language.  Lani said he was very surprised to see her on transfer day. Lani also wrote that there are more ASL missionaries coming next transfer. She feels that her companion will stay in the Seneca ward and she will be transferred south to DC to work with the deaf. Lani's hope when she went outbound was that she would be assigned to a deaf unit and be able to develop and use her ASL MORE.

Stayed tuned for more adventures from DC .

Sister Bee's  Momma