Cupstoration

Here is a link to a darling video of Sarah doing the Cupstoration song. It is amazing!

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9ypqUlXbKYXX2ZRRUJ6Z01hVlE/edit

(Here is a teaser of what it looks like, but you have to use the link to actually watch it.)_

November 24, 2014

Wow, what a week!  We have been truly blessed so so much!  I  am just blown away at the many doors or opportunities that have been opened to us just in the last couple of days!  It really has been so amazing!  I love the Sheboygan ward!  The people are wonderful and my companion is so so wonderful!  We are very similar in many ways!  

Some of the people we are working with are Nicole, Emily, Linda and Eric, and Arrianna.  We invited Nicole to be baptized on December 20th this week and she is really excited for baptism!  Her daughter is a recent convert and has a really cool conversion story that I was able to ask her about.  

We have been getting referrals right and left it seems!  We got one from the Oak Creek sisters, which happens to be one of my old companions, Sister Ormsby!  Also, in Fond du Lac, one of the members has a sister that lives in Sheboygan so we are looking forward to meeting her and the members are very open in sharing the with us the people they have been working with.  

We had a neat experience trying this new survey thing too, tracting this week.  As we learn how to use more and helps us know what people are searching for and what their needs are. While we were doing that we met a really sweet 90 year old lady raking her leaves.  We came up to her and asked if we could help her.  At first she said no but we persisted and were happy and she softened and let us help.  By the end she was so grateful and later called the number we left her.  She must have thought it was a number to our leaders because she left the sweetest voicemail!  Afterward we both agreed that doing service just "infuses our souls with light."  

well, I have to get going but Happy Thanksgiving!!!!  I am grateful so so much for all of you and to be on a mission!!!!!!!  The church is brilliantly true!

November 17, 2014

Well, it is certainly getting chilly here!  There was a storm like last week or the beginning of this week that just missed us but we still got some snow and the temperature is dropping.  Funny enough, even though I'm not excited for the cold, the first snow is always really exciting!  It was fun, not fun to drive in though.  And it makes everything look really beautiful. 

It's transfers this week, and I'm getting transferred to Sheboygan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It has been a great 3 transfers with Sister Cosgrove and I am going to miss her a lot and all of the wonderful people here that I've been blessed to be able to work with!  I am staying in the same zone though so I will still get to see her!  My trainer, Sister Brandley, was the one that opened Sheboygan after she trained me, and I've heard that it has really picked up there!  My companion is going to be Sister Osmond.  I have already met her and she is super nice! 

It was definitely a good last week in Fond du Lac.  We met with Nicky, a referral from our bishop.  She needed help moving so we moved her in and unpacked her kitchen for her.  This week we went back and asked her if she was interested in learning more about our church.  She said yes!!!!!!  Not only did she say yes but she also said that she didn't have a church to go to and was looking for one!!!  She is so awesome!!!!!!!!!  I'm glad I can stay in contact with Sister Cosgrove to find out what happens from there. 

We also had another member give us another referral, a girl, he wanted us to go to lunch with.  So we called her and set up the appointment.  We also asked her if she would like to learn more and she also said yes!!!  It was so exciting! 

We had the ward talent show this week!!!  Angel and her whole family, who are not members, came!!!!!!  That was a huge step for them!  Sister Cosgrove and I taught the restoration through singing and building the restoration tower while doing the cup song.  We have been singing it as our opening song in companionship study for a while now.  We actually got it down pretty fast.  It was so fun!  We have been using it to teach the restoration.  It is fun and entertaining and helps people to feel the spirit!  :D  It was so fun and we didn't mess up, haha.
We performed it in our lesson to Cora this week too.  It was such an awesome lesson!  The whole family came in and absolutely loved it!  At the end they begged us to do it again!  The 2 year old was clapping so fast and so hard, you could barely see her hands.  There was a very special spirit about the whole family being gathered around in harmony with each other all focussed on the lesson, and talking about Jesus Christ.  The dad, has never came in for any of our lesson but he came in and I know that he noticed what that did for his family. He said that to us, and even offered to say the closing prayer.  What a miracle!  I hope he continues to see how it brings his family together.

Everyone was so nice to me this weekend!  They found out I was getting transferred and one of the families that we ate with, the Whittun family, made me a cake that said on it "we will miss you Sister Prestwich."  It was so sweet!!!!  I just love all of the people here!

Well, gotta go!  love you!  The church is superly true!

November 10, 2014

It is definitely starting to get a little more chilly here and I am getting out the winter coat again!  We are expecting a storm here but it hasn't hit yet.

We were able to get in with all of our recent converts and with most of the home teachers with us as well, which has been one of our goals.  They really do make a big difference!  Having member present lessons with recent converts and less actives is really important too!  One of Angel's home teachers, Kordel, gave his farewell talk in sacrament meeting yesterday and is leaving to Ghana on Wednesday!  He gave a really good talk and played a musical number with Sister Cropper that made me really happy.  I know the ward here is going to be so blessed for all the missionaries serving.  They haven't had missionaries out for over 5 years and now they will have 3 out! 

We met with Donna this week and she has been reading in the Book of Mormon!  Yay!  She has a lot of questions, mostly about what different words mean.  She has a really hard time understanding it so pray for her.  We are trying to teach very simply to her.  We got back in with Priscilla this week, which was such a tender mercy.

Well, sorry this one is short but I don't have much time today!  Last night we got 3 new investigators by calling people we didn't know on our phone! That was great!  Love you and hope you all have an awesome week!

The church is exceedingly true!

November 3, 2014

What an awesome and super exciting week it has been!  We had a lot of disappointments, like cancelled appointments with a lot of our investigators but, no worries, the good always outweighs the bad! 

We had Zone Conference this week and I accompanied a musical number!  I am just so grateful that I was able to do that!  Another sister in our District, Sister Woods, plays the cello, and I had given her the music a while back for that arrangement of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" that Aunt Janet helped write.  Well, the zone leaders asked if anyone would like to do the musical number for zone conference and Sister Woods, turned us in.  We actually ended up doing a different arrangement of the song that she had though.  It was so beautiful!!!  I just love accompanying!  Sister Woods is a very talented musician too!  It really brought the Spirit!  What was really neat, was that the last training/talk before the musical number was a very powerful talk about Joseph Smith.  During that talk it hit me that when we decided to do that song we had no idea what the topic of the training would be.  It went perfectly!  I"m so grateful for the atonement and for how much the Book of Mormon teaches us about the nature of Jesus Christ and how we can apply the atonement of Jesus Christ in our lives.  That was one of the things they talked about as well.  Bro. Pountain was the one that talked about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.  He showed us one of the original copies of the Book of Mormon that he had and face sculpture thing of Joseph Smith.  Then he showed us where the bible prophesies of Joseph Smith.  I took some pictures to show you some of these things.  He also told his conversion story and how a 50 cent copy of the Book of Mormon he got at a garage sale was far more precious to him than the $83,000 copy he had in his hand because of the other one was how he first came to know it was true.  Once he had felt that the Book of Mormon was true it took him a long time to find the church.  He called the church building number everyday from Monday to Friday for months before finally a relief society sister answered during one of their enrichment nights.  Then months later to finally meet missionaries.  It was quite the story!  Anyway it was a very special zone conference, one I will never forget.

We have an appointment with someone new. Her name is Nicky and we helped her move in to her new house  Saturday.  Her mom happened to be the friendly cashier lady at the grocery store we shop at each week.  We set a return appointment to help her with a few more things and to find out if she is interested in learning more about our church.  I think she is :) 

Then our other new investigator is Cora.  She comes from a less active family we have been working with for a few weeks.  We talked to them this week about if Cora would like to be baptized.  Cora seems very interested and Sister Zedan as well.  Bro. Zedan wasn't there so we don't know what his feelings are yet.  Cora is awesome though!  We are planning on starting to teach her next week!

Okay, now for the little surprise we had on Sunday...On Sunday, our stake president came and guess what?!!!

*drum roll*

Fond du Lac branch was officially made a WARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D :D

Yahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We could hardly contain our excitement!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Sister Cosgrove and I actually found out right before they announced it.  When they made the announcement the reaction in the congregation reminded me a little of when the age change was made in General Conference.  It was so wonderful!  The whole branch was just flowing with gratitude!  All of the branch presidents that had served there were present that day too!  So now Pres. Heap is now Bishop Heap.  Not much is that difference but I think this will really motivate the members to get involved more with the missionary work too!  We have a lot of work to do!  I just feel so very grateful that I was able to be here to see Fond du Lac become a ward.  I never thought that would happen while I was here.  I know this church is true with all of my heart.  We had a really neat experience with Bonnie that really touched my heart.  For one it has been so wonderful to see her testimony grow as we teach her the new member lessons.  On Wed. we taught her about temples and eternal families and she told us that she feels a strong desire to go to the temple and do the work for her grandparents.  I love seeing her grow!  She bore her testimony to us on Sunday and told us that she was going to do it in church but she didn't think there was time left.  The Lord has truly been preparing her to receive the gospel her whole life and she recognizes this.  Bonnie is one of the most grateful individuals I have ever met!  She is so christlike and humble!  Well, it has been such a wonderful week. The work continues to move forward!  Well, I have to get going now.  The church is growingly true!