February 16th, 2015

Wow!  What a week!  Monday and Tuesday were both extremely busy trying to prepare for transfers and visiting everyone before Sister Osmond left!  We had a lesson with Holly on Tuesday morning and the whole rest of the day was booked until 9 at night but we found out that we would actually be leaving at 7 at night instead of Wednesday morning!  It was crazy!  On Wednesday morning they had a really neat special training for the trainers.  I am grateful for the opportunity to train because it is teaching me SO much!  It was such a special experience!  I was able to play the piano for it and I'm just grateful to be a missionary!  We sang called to serve and all of the new missionaries walked in and faced the trainers.  When I came down I was just wondering which one of them is going to be my new companion??  Well, my new companion is Sister Calderon from Midland, Texas!  She is so wonderful and such a great gospel teacher!  I love being her companion and truly it has been a great learning opportunity for me this week!  It hasn't been easy but I am learning so much and am grateful for Sister Calderon! 

As a mission we have an apostle, a seventy, and another General Authority coming to our mission on March 21st and we have been preparing by doing a forty day fast!  We have been

Feasting upon the words of Christ, reading the Book of Mormon and Preach my Gospel everyday

Acting in obedience

Sanctifying through the sacrament

Testifying with our feet

to prepare for it!  We are so excited!  We just found out that 2 families with recent converts from exactly a year ago are preparing to be sealed on our ward temple trip day, March 14th!!!!!!!!!!!!  It is so exciting!!!!!!!!  This is a really big day for the ward here!  Ebony, a recent convert, is preparing to go to the temple for the first time along with a lot of the other recent converts and some returning less actives we have been working with!  It is such a big day and we are so excited!!!!!!!!!!!  When we started focussing our recent converts on the temple it really motivated them! 

We saw a lot of little tender mercies this week.  We invited Thaina to be baptized on a specific day and were able to see Joleen and Faith again.  We started working with a few new people and met a girl named Becky.  I have to go now but I love you all!!!  Have a great week!  I know that this church is true!  And I know that our Savior loves us SO much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Never forget that!  There is great power  in the pure love of Christ! 

February 9th, 2015

This email is going to be short!  But so much has happened in the past 2 weeks with the work!  First of all  transfers are this week and Sister Osmond is being transferred to the Madison 4th ward and I will be training a new missionary!  It has been so crazy but I have truly seen how, even in the past 2 weeks, this area has been prepared for her!  So we went to the temple on Friday it was such a beautiful experience and so nice to go with SIster Osmond before we received the transfer text the very next day and found out she was leaving.  I will miss her SO  much!!!!  But her new companion is my MTC companion,  SIster Clawson!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  They will be so wonderful together!   We have 4 new investigators!   Ana,  a referral from Bishop Holmes,  she speaks Romanian and has come to church for the past 2 weeks now!  Also,  Fatih and Joleen.  We helped shovel for her and then we came back and talked with her more.  Her friend came to our first little lesson with her along with one of the sisters from the ward.  She said that she was really glad that she met us.  Her friend Joleen has such a cute family!  We went to go so bye to her and her whole family was together playing board games together!  It seemed like family night.  We might have to let the Spanish elders help teach them though because they speak Spanish.  It would be really great to teach them but if it is better language wise to let the elders teach them we will refer them to the elders. 

Also,  Yu, our Japanese investigator,  came to church this week!  He said it reminded him a lot about when he was in Utah.   He has been keeping a lot of commitments!  Anyway, I have to go!  Love you!

The church is transformingly true!

January 26, 2015

I'm so grateful for the new skirts you sent for Christmas!!!!!!!!  We had a little mishap that I forget to tell you about ... So a few week ago one of the members in our ward offered to mend our skirts because of few of my skirts had gotten little rips in them.  She did and dropped them off to us on a night that happened to be garbage night.   We left the bag by the door and accidently took it out with our garbage!  So I lost a lot of good skirts unfortunately but I'm grateful I still have enough skirts to wear because of Christmas! :)

So this week we taught Yu more about the Book of Mormon and read a chapter with him.  He said even in japanese it is difficult for him to understand a lot of things but he read Enos and really liked the last verse!  We talked about "likening" or applying the scriptures to ourselves and he felt like he could really relate to Nephi.  We gave him a restoration DVD and told him he could watch it in japanese and he was very excited about that!  He really really wants to come to church and was so sad that he couldn't this week because he had to go to Milwaukee and next week he is going to Green Bay. We are really excited for him to come but it seems like something always takes him somewhere else.  He asked if he could come on wednesday,  so he could meet some of the other people from the ward.  We are excited for him to come!

Yesterday we were going to meet a less active member that we have never met before.  The apartment building was locked so we couldn't get in to knock on our door.  We felt like we should knock lightly on the window, so we did.  A woman came out.  At first we thought she was angry at us but she was actually really nice.  She was not a member of our church but said that we could say a prayer with her.  We did.  Afterward, she said "you don't know what you just did for me."  She then said that later this week she is going to have surgery.  We shared the Book of Mormon with her and she wants to learn more and come to our church.  She even knows a member from the ward, Sister Heinrich!  She called her right after we left and Sister Heinrich told us that she committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon! 

Also, Joy, who speaks only Laos, came to church with her family this week!  When we go to see her we always sing a hymn to her and say a prayer with her and even though it's not the same language she always loves it!  At church I just loved how happy she was!  A couple of week ago, we had a feeling to stop by when we were in the area.  We did and when we came in we saw her grandson covered in chocolate, with chocolate smeared all over the wall and candy everywhere!  She looked a little overwhelmed!  We had just enough time to help her clean up the mess.  I'm so glad that we stopped and could help her!  It was really neat so I thought I'd share it. :)

 The church is applicably true!