January 27, 2014

There is a lot of big news for this week!  My companion, Sister Brandley, and both of the elders in our ward, Elder Crandal and Elder Baldwin, are getting transferred!  They are splitting the zones and putting in zone leaders here in Marquette so the UP is going to be its own zone now!  My new companion is going to be Sister Ostler!!!  We had a feeling big things were coming to Marquette! Maybe that explains the opposition that this area has seen in the past couple of weeks.  I'm sad to say good by to Sister Brandley but we are all very excited for the new things that this week will bring!  My companion is reopening the Sheboygan area and is also training again!  I know it will be quite the adventure for her and I will be praying for her. :)

I don't have much time but I will try to fit in as much as I can. 

On Monday we had dinner with a recent convert, Kim, out in Gwinn.  She fed us homemade sushi and rice balls with egg drop soup!  It was delicious!  A less-active member of the ward they invited came as well and we taught them the Plan of Salvation.  

On Tuesday we met with a wonderful potential family.  The father teaches religion at the university here and was very kind to us.  They pray and read the scriptures as a family already but the mom doesn't see the need for the Book of Mormon.  They said we can come back though and stop in for dinner anytime!

One of my favorite lessons this week was with a girl named Hannah on Wednesday.  My companion and I were introduced to grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (which are surprisingly really good!)  and we came up with a fun way to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ using grilled PB&J sandwiches!  It was really great!  I think it also really helped her realize why she needs to read on her own to know for herself that it is true (you can't know if a grilled PB&J sandwich is good just by hearing about it you have to taste it for yourself).  We stopped by on Friday and she had done the reading we assigned her!!!  

We also volunteered at a cross country ski race serving soup this week!  During the race there was a really bad white out but it was super exciting!!!  All of the racers came in with pure white faces from the snow!  Sister Brandley and I had fun running in the storm to our truck as well, haha.  The weather is always exciting up here :)  That day we also got stuck for the first time, in the silliest place too!  We were blessed to get out quickly though.  

It is so exciting to see the progress that the less actives we are working with are making!  One of them is an older couple.  The husband had gotten baptized for his wife and didn't really participate in our lessons when we first went to see them but now you can truly see the change in his countenance over the last couple of weeks!  Tears come to his eyes when we talk about the gospel and he is now reading the Book of Mormon.  He is happy and wants to start taking the temple preparation classes so they can be sealed in the temple!  There are also two other less active families that have come to church twice now!  Now we just need to get our investigators coming too! :)  

Love you all!  The church is brightly true!

Sister Prestwich :)

January 20, 2014

On Monday we had to take my companion into the walk in clinic and had called a member to take us there.  We felt we should ask Sister Blotter.  While we were there we ran into a former investigator that just happened to be there and the only members of the church they are friends with are the Blotters so it was perfect!  We really saw a lot of tender mercies that day!  A referral we had met with called us and said that she had read the chapters we had assigned her in the Book of Mormon and that she felt she was understanding it and wanted to tell us more about it and about baptism!  She lives far away but we plan to see her this Friday.

 This was a very exciting week because our mission president was coming to interview us and also one of our investigators, Aaron.  Aaron is doing so well!  He comes to church every Sunday and reads the Book of Mormon every night with his wife.  He is truly making so many good changes in his life and desires to feel true forgiveness.  He passed the interview!  We are so happy for him and his desire to be baptized.  He still has a long process ahead of him but is taking the steps and starting the process to be baptized.  He came to church yesterday in a new white shirt, I know that's a little thing but with everything he is doing you can just see his desire to make good changes in his life and be good.  Our mission president gave him a priesthood blessing as well.  What an incredible experience that was.  I will never forget it.  That was Aaron's first priesthood blessing. 

We have still been working with the Stocker family and they are taking longer but they still desire to be baptized, they just take baby steps.  We watched the CES fireside with them and they came to a primary activity and to church on Sunday, so they are making progress.  

On Thursday Sister Brandley and I stopped by a former investigator.  It just so happened that she had been thinking about us that day too!  It was my first time meeting her but the other sisters had taught her a little during the summer.  They are a wonderful family!  We walked in and she was cooking dinner and listening to piano guys!  She said it was the only music that she and her husband could agree on, haha.  Anyway we have a return appointment with her tomorrow. 

It has been a hard week but also we have seen so many tender mercies this week!  All the missionaries here are saying that something really good must be coming because we have seen a lot of opposition.  We have great hopes for the future though! I know that this gospel is true with all of my heart!  I love you all soooooooooooo much!  The church is faithfully true!!!!!!!!!!!!

January 13, 2014

I don't have a lot of time today.   What a week!  it was zone training this week and I went on exchanges with the sister training leaders.  I was with Sister Newton in Greenbay, Wisconsin for a day.  It was a blast!  We had a super cool experience with finding a family.  God is definitely preparing people to hear our message.  That morning I went on my first winter jog. :)  Surprisingly, I got really hot and wished I hadn't put on so many layers, haha.  It was fun though! 

We also had our first media referral this week.  We met with her and she wants to come to church and for us to teach her more. 

Also, today was really neat.  We met someone here at the library just barely who said they felt like they were definitely guided to us today and we taught them a lesson and meeting with them again tomorrow.  They said they haven't come to this library for a year and can't even use the computers but felt like they should today.  My favorite part was when they said '"Why hasn't anyone ever told me this before?" 

I know that the Lord is in this work and I am seeing it more than ever before!  He is in the details of our lives and He is definitely shaping us.  I know that everything we experience and our trials help us to grow even if we don't know how the Lord is shaping us.  The coolest part is that somehow it also fits together perfectly with those around us. My companion and I need prayers this week!  I have a feeling that this week my companion and I will be given many opportunities to grow more than ever before. 

 I love you

-Sister Prestwich

January 6, 2014

 The last couple of days have been pretty exciting up here!  We received a message from our mission president the other day that said we are not allowed to tract or street contact for the next couple of days because the high is supposed to be -10 degrees Fahrenheit  and with the wind chill, between -40 and -55!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We can still go to appointments but we just have to limit the time that we are outside so we don't get frostbite.  

I hope everyone had a Happy New Years!  For New Years Eve we volunteer at the museum from 5:30 to 7:30.  They were having a little party for the kids there, and we helped by passing out noise makers and....looking for the lost snake. :0  One of the snakes there got out of its cage during the new years eve celebration so our job was to look for it and make sure the word didn't get out that there was a loose snake.  We certainly succeeded at keeping people from finding out and there was no panic but we never did find the snake, in fact, it is still missing... 

On Thursday we went out to Gwinn to see our investigators out there.  We usually only get to go there once a week because of miles but we went twice this week.  While we were out there we had a prompting to go visit a former investigator's house, Melissa, who had moved a couple of weeks ago.  We saw that there was a car there and knocked on the door.  She was there!  Just a little background about her:  we taught Melissa the restoration and she was wonderful and even took notes on the reading we gave to her!  We had not taught her about the word of wisdom yet and heard about from a friend that you couldn't drink coffee or smoke and didn't like that.  We never got to talk to her at all about the word of wisdom because the last time we heard from her she had moved to downstate Michigan.  Now that you have the story I'll continue.  She was home and invited us in!  She apologized for the brief good bye she had given us during our last phone call and explained the hardships that she had been through in the past couple of weeks.  She also told us that she and her husband had decided that for their new years resolution they would quit smoking and she already had a plan for it!!!!!!!  She has so many good desires and we are SO excited to be teaching her again!  The Lord works miracles everyday!

Also, I tried deer meat here for the first time. :)  We met at a less actives house for dinner and they had a delicious looking chili with tons of meat in it.  The meat was deer meat that they had ground themselves.  At first it was fine but I had gotten a HUGE bowl of it and it the meat made the whole soup taste very strongly of deer meat.  I tried not to think about it and ate the WHOLE thing but it was a bit challenging, haha.   I also tried corn beef with cabbage this week which was absolutely deicious!  Also, a Compton favorite is grilled cheese dipped in hot chocolate.

The ward did a sock hop on Friday and we almost got an appointment with a nonmember there.  They said they'd love to meet with us though so we are going to set it up with the ward members they are friends with.  

Saturday was wonderful!  Our investigator is starting to read the Book of Mormon consistently on their own!  His wife is a member but he is not and he has been taught by the missionaries off and on since 2006!  During this lesson my companion and I set up our lesson differently than usual.  I really felt like that we were able to help him through the guidance of the spirit resolve some of the concerns he had and we found out that after all of these years none of the missionaries ever taught him how to pray!  We taught him how to pray and committed him to praying to know if what he was reading is true.  He expressed to us that he was understanding it more than ever before.  His whole countenance changed during this lesson!  We are excited for him!  Later that evening we stopped by another part member family, with a similar situation.  The wife is a member and the husband is not.  He is making so much progress though! The church is miraculously true!!