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!  

October 22, 2014

What a week!  We had our zone training meeting this week and we had a movie training where we got to see Meet the Mormons!!!  It was really neat and so fun to see the movie that everyone has been talking about!  Some of our recent converts went to see it to and even brought their daughter who is not a member! 

On Tuesday, we met with Anna.  As we were talking with her she said that right after the missionaries (us)  had stopped to talk to her, she went out to eat with a friend who lives out of state.  That friend then told her that she had just gotten baptized, along with the rest of her family, into a really great church.  Anna asked what church and she said the mormon church!  Anna told her that she had just been talking to the missionaries.  Her friend then told her that she should really listen to what they have to say.  So Anna told us that, that is what she is going to do! 

We also met with Donna this week and taught her the restoration.  It went really well.  It was surprising to me that even though Donna has been to church a lot with her neighbors, that she didn't know that we have a modern prophet.  We might start meeting with Donna at a different members house next week.  I hope the change goes alright. 

We also got an exciting phone call this week!  Nicole, from the hospital where we volunteer, called us and said that she got a new job and has Sunday off and wanted to come to church!  So on Sunday Nicole and her friend,  Branden, both came to church!  They were mainly just coming to see  what it was like but the branch reached out to them more than any other investigators we have brought before, haha!  I hope it wasn't too overwhelming for them.  We stood in the hallway in front of the chapel before it started and explained our meetings to her.  It was kind of funny because everyone that walked by would shake Nicole and Branden's hands almost without even thinking about it.  Nicole and Branden were surprised by how friendly everyone was and by all of the people they didn't even know just shaking their hands.  It was fun.  They aren't interested in meeting with us right now but it was definitely a seed planted!  The church is cheerfully true! Love ya!

October 13, 2014

Well, it was a little bit of a surprise but I will be staying in Fond Du Lac for another transfer!  We had transfers this week and everyone thought I would go but I guess my work in Fond du Lac is not done yet!  I'm excited for another transfer here!  I love Fond Du Lac, it is a very nice place to be and will work hard this transfer. 

We don't do activities too often on P-days because we our district is so spread out but on Monday we went to a marsh and caught frogs!  I will have to send pictures next week!  It was actually pretty fun.  We also played ultimate frisby, which I am getting a lot better at.

 We have been doing a lot of tracting lately, which has been hard but I know that the Lord is blessing us. We don't usually find too many new investigators through tracting.  This week we found 3 new investigators: Courtney, Michael, and Anna.  Anna is awesome and has met sisters before. Michael we met on the street as we were walking and started talking to him about he Book of Mormon.  He quickly accepted a copy and we invited him to read 3 Nephi 11.  He said he would read it and then he would start at the beginning and read the whole thing!

Although, we didn't have a lot of success with investigators this week we did see a lot of miracles with less actives.  We saw the Sister Zedan this week.  She is so nice and really wants to come back to church.  She said that she and her girls were all ready to come last Sunday but her husband wouldn't let them go because he thought it would make him look bad if they went without him.   We usually meet with her in the morning when most of her kids are at school and decided to do it when the whole family is there.  She invited us for dinner this week!  Pray for Bro. Zedan.

Then we also met with Matt this week.  His sister usually sit in on our lessons and is strong in her church so she usually doesn't participate very much. Well, this time she asked for a Book of Mormon so she could follow along while we read and also shared what she liked about the chapter we read too.  Then to top it off she gave us a half referral.  She said she has a friend, Lisa, in the hospital who is going through a hard time and she said that it would be good if we met with her!  She didn't have any contact information for us yet though. 

Sunday was awesome this week!  Emily gave her farewell talk!  It was so so good!  She is going to be an awesome missionary!  She shared some stories about sister missionaries and talked about how the one message she really wants everyone to know is that "your Heavenly Father loves you."  She went on to share some experiences where missionaries were surprised when they were prompted to say or share something that the person they met really needed but that the person never got baptized or started investigating.  They then realized that sometimes Heavenly Father works through us just to comfort His children, and to simply show His love for them.  It was a powerful sacrament meeting and one that Sister Cosgrove and I needed.  Well, Emily left today for the MTC and will soon be serving in Murray Utah!  If you see Sister Prellwitz soon say hi to her for me!  I know that Heavenly Father does know and love each one of us and He wants us to know that!  Missionary work is so much about loving those around us! 

Well, hope you have a great week!  The fall colors are beautiful!   The church is lovingly true!

October 6, 2014

What a week!  First of all, I just have to say how much I love General Conference!  The speakers are inspired servants of the Lord!  I loved all of the messages that they shared and am excited to work hard to apply them.  I really liked the speakers that gave their talks in their native languages.  That was really neat. 

Well, at the beginning of the week we had District Meeting on asking inspired questions which I really want to work on and I think I have a great example to help me.  We were still out of miles so we ended up walking to our dinner appointment and on the way met a lady named Jeanne.  She was really sweet and told us that she is related to the Bengel family in our branch.  We didn't get a return appointment but she said she can always use help with her yard and we are welcome to stop by any time.  So we are definitely going to go back and offer our service to her. 

After talking to her it started to get dark and we were going to be late for our dinner appointment.  We firmly grabbed our bags and jogged down the country road.  It was really hard and we got chased by a couple of dogs (first time we've actually been chased)  but it was an exciting adventure and we were sure glad when we made it!  Surprisingly we were only a few minutes late for our dinner appointment and they were loading hay into their barn.  So we helped them finish with the hay.  Funny enough, there were other members from our branch coming that we could've gotten a ride with, haha.  That's alright, we made it and learned endurance. :)  It was a really neat dinner appointment and one that I won't forget.  At the end we were in a hurry to get out because it was getting late but I remembered that we hadn't said a closing prayer.  I mentioned it and we said one.  I'm really glad that I did because that led to someone getting a priesthood blessing after the prayer.  I don't know if that would've happened if we had just hurried out.  Either way I'm grateful that we were there for it. 

Well, I'm out of time.  I hope you all have a fantastic week!  The church is everlastingly true!