Pretty Great Week

This week was pretty great if I do say so myself and also.... it's the the last day of April... uh what?? Where has the last month of my life gone?!?!

Yesterday we went to Burlington and had a conference where Elder Paul V. Johnson, of the Seventy, and his wife spoke to us. It was really, really great! He taught us a lot of things that we will all be able to use to make ourselves better missionaries! It was fun to get together with a bunch of other missionaries and see some of the Elders and Sisters that I haven't seen in awhile. Oh and funny story, Sister Tebbs got called up to the front during the conference to take part in kind of an object lesson. Elder Johnson was explaining how we learn different things in different ways and so he brought Sister Tebbs up and said, "OK, in 5 minutes I need you to teach me how to be a soccer player." Well Sister Tebbs responds to that with, "Well it would take a lot more than 5 minutes to get you in shape!" Everyone started laughing and the joke for the rest of the day was that she insulted a General Authority! Of course she didn't mean to and he thought it was funny but.... my companion got pretty famous yesterday! haha

On Saturday we were able to do a service project which was a lot of fun even though all we did was pick up trash at a park for four hours! I will have to get a picture of the group of us to send sometime. I can't believe how much trash we were able to pick up. It was pretty unreal. Oh and this park had a "petting zoo" even though you weren't allowed to actually pet the animals. But.... I felt like I was at home seeing the cute goats and they even had some mini donkeys! Granted, these mini donkeys weren't too happy like Otis back at home. I wish I could have freed them from their pens... anyway... I got a little bit sunburned this day as well. It was super hot! Once again I am not really sure how I will survive the summer.

That night we got together with our zone and did what is called a Blitz. Basically we got together with the other District, the Zone Leaders and the Assistants and all of us missionaries went to an area in Brampton and talked with EVERYONE. It was pretty cool! We flooded the streets pretty much and it was really effective in a few ways. 1. we got a lot of contacts and 2. It motivated Sister Tebbs and I to talk to some people! Up until this point we had still been pretty scared to open our mouths so this was something that added some competition and forced us to do it. And it worked because Sister Tebbs and I handed out 5 copies of the Book of Mormon in just over an hour. All of the Elders were pretty impressed and now Elder Prochnow is giving Sister Tebbs a hat for her achievement and Elder Amorim will be giving me a Canadian Flag. haha It took a little bribing, yes, but it was just the confidence boost we needed and now we aren't worried about talking with everyone!

So what else happened this week.... oh one morning I woke up and had a pretty severe rash on my neck and face and my eyes were SO swollen. It was pretty bad. haha I mean like really bad.... I may send a picture but I doubt it because..... woof.

This week was full of ups and downs but thankfully they were mostly ups! Sometimes I can't believe how much I have changed in the past 3 weeks. I look back to when Sister Tebbs and I first got to this area and I know I have had to grow a lot. The change is gradual for me, but I really do feel like I am a completely different person and it is totally in a good way!

Time is also flying by. I can't believe that I am in the 4th week of this transfer. Feeling like I can't get too comfortable either, because I will probably end up getting transferred again. Word on the street is that 20 new sisters will be coming in this next transfer which means that big changes will be happening again. I guess we will just have to see! :)

Sister Tebbs and I have a progressing investigator that we are pretty excited about! I hate even saying that for fear of it not happening, but she has a baptismal date, has come to church twice and is really, REALLY loving it. Her name is Shelmith and she came from Kenya about 6 weeks ago. She is really so awesome. So open to the Spirit and willing to learn. Sister Tebbs and I have been praying for her A LOT and we have a good feeling. :) OK so a funny story... we have an investigator who LOVES us. Her name is Nicole and she was a little leery about meeting with us because she thought we would be weird, but now she thinks we are great and wants to learn more and wants to take us to dinner sometime soon. haha Anyway last Monday her and her husband saw us at Walmart and last night she told us what her husband said to her when he saw us. He said, "Hey there are those girls you meet with. They are so pretty and they are covered up... but they're so pretty." So we could have taken this as being creepy but honestly I take it as the fact that modest really is hottest and that the "missionary glow" is a real thing. haha

Ok I think that should do it for today! :) Missionary life is pretty sweet and I am honestly loving it. Some days it hits me how fast time is going and I honestly get pretty sad. It isn't everyday you can go share the good word with complete strangers and it is sad to think that so soon I will have to take off this name tag and be done. I don't even like thinking about it. I'll just enjoy every moment.... keep inviting others to come unto Christ and baptizing the nation. :)

Week two in Brampton

Well, well, well... looks like I have made it through another week here in Canada! Looking back on the week it feels like it has been kinda boring. It doesn't feel like anything too exciting has happened!

I just found out that one of my investigators from Guelph, Egigu, was baptized Sunday!! Sad I wasn't there, but awesome that he was able to take that next step in his life. He was a guy we met on the bus and the first day we taught him we invited him to be baptized and he said yes. People really are so prepared. They just don't know it yet and that is why it is so important to talk with everyone!

We had an investigator come to church! She really loved it and we are looking forward to seeing her progress!

 This week some members gave us these Canada mittens!

I have been wanting some since I got here, so it was great that they just gifted us some they never use! Now I will have some nice mittens come next winter! (or to use now if it never warms up!)

Speaking of the weather.. Thursday was HOT! That was the first time I have really felt the humidity and let's just say there is no way I am going to survive the summer. It wasn't even that warm and I was dying.... I am not prepared for what is coming our way. It was so hot Thursday and then snowed Sunday. This weather really needs to make up its mind!

I really am learning so much and am amazed everyday about the stuff that I can now do that I couldn't do before. Like just having a conversation about religion and not being nervous about what to say... That seems like a small thing but when I first got here I couldn't say anything and now I can carry on conversations and hold my own. It really is just a lot of progress and I know that this is an experience that will help me in so many ways and it is just such a short amount of time so I really need to enjoy every second of it.

 Okay so I really don't have much more for this week! I will attempt and be better next week! Things are going well, I can't believe that it is already week 3 of the transfer! Time really does fly sometimes! :)

New Companion, New Area, New Car !

First week in the new area and things went pretty well. It has been an adjustment for both Sister Tebbs and I to not be able to hide behind our trainers anymore but it has been a great learning experience and we are sure that things will get better and better as the weeks go by! :)

Sister Tebbs and Sister Prescott

 So kind of a funny story about the transfer. We all met at the Brampton Stake Center and that is where I said bye to Sister Tuia and Sister DeRuvo and met up with Sister Tebbs. From there we went and got our apartment info from the Zone Leader, Elder Prochnow, and he gave us the keys to our car. Now this is where the funny part comes in. Elder Prochnow hands me the keys and says, "It's a brand new car, that doesn't have a Tiwi (the thing that tracks our speed and tells us to slow down) in it yet so.... be careful." So just like that I now get to drive a 2013 Chevy Cruz and could potentially go as fast as a wanted to! haha No of course I wouldn't do that, but honestly I don't really like the pressure of driving a brand new car! If anything happens it is 100% my fault and that's scary. haha I am thankful to have a car, though. I never thought I would say this but I do miss the buses! The buses were such a great way to meet people so now we are going to have to come up with new ways to find people. I won't complain about having the car, though because it really is a blessing and I will be grateful for it every day! :)

The ward here is SO awesome! Like SO awesome  The ward mission leader met with us a few hours after getting here, we have already met a ton of the families and they are so nice. There is a sister in the ward who coordinates all of our meal appointments so we will get dinner probably 5 times a week. There is a family in the ward who feeds us every week and brings us bags of treats on Sundays. Everyone is just really so great here! I can already tell I will be sad to leave! Hopefully President just keeps me here for months and months and months. :) The members are also just really excited to have Sisters in the ward again and that is probably why they are all so friendly! haha Everyone is excited to have us here. Makes us feel welcomed which is really nice.

Our apartment is really great as well. We live in the basement of some members. (the dad is the Bishop of the Spanish Ward) It is a lot bigger than my last apartment and has a washer and dryer in the apartment which is SO nice. Thankfully the Elders didn't leave it TOO dirty either. They were only there for a transfer so they didn't have time to make it too bad. ;) haha

"I decorated our new apartment"

Our Kitchen

"Looking good !"

The really rough part about this week has not been having food! (don't freak out mom, we have been eating, just cereal and yogurt! haha) When we got here Tuesday we just did shopping for the "basics" and let me tell you those $70 worth of "basics" didn't last too long! So we are pretty pumped to do some grocery shopping today! Oh, and the other good news about being in Brampton is that I can get mail every week! So... send me mail! :) And now that I get it more often I will have more time to write back! :)

"Beautiful day here, and so nice to have the temple where we can see it everyday"

The weather is gradually starting to get better... it snowed Thursday which was a real bummer, but today is super nice. Everyone here says it is never like this and that it should hopefully be warming up soon. Well I am sure I neglected to tell you all a million great things, but I will save them for next week if I remember them! :) Sister Tebbs and I are going to keep hitting it hard here in Brampton and hope to see some success soon! :)

First Transfer

Too funny !!  Karly with Sister DeRuvo

Well I made it through my first transfer as a missionary! (Can you believe it!?) I had a good feeling that I wouldn't be staying here in Guelph and my feelings were correct! We got the call last night and I will be moving to Brampton! And I am PUMPED! Everyone refers to Brampton as "the hub".   The Temple, mission home, mission office and all other sorts of great things are there. I am really excited. I will be "whitewashing" an area called Heart Lake North with Sister Tebbs. Whitewashing means that they took 2 missionaries out and will be putting 2 new in. So that will be exciting! We'll have to find our way around pretty quickly. :)

So it is totally crazy that I am companions with Sister Tebbs,  and I will give you all a little background story on that. It all starts with my Sophomore year of college when I met some boys who had gone to Copper Hills High School (Brenton, Emilio, Luis, and Matt) We became really good friends and thus I was introduced to a lot of their friends from school, one of them being a kid named Andrew Newbold. Now at this same time Sister Tebbs was going to Western Wyoming where she met Andrew and they started dating. I had heard about her from the boys, and I think I even met her once and had seen pictures of her. Fast-forward a few years to the MTC. I see Sister Tebbs walk into the cafeteria and I was pretty sure that is who she was, so I went up to talk to her. She said that yeah she dates Andrew, and we laughed about what a small world it is. And then the world got smaller. Her companion says, "It's so funny that you came to talk to us, because I just saw you and said to Sister Tebbs that I needed to talk to you!" So then I found out that Sister Tebbs' companion is friends with Ashley Grigor (who I met in Ecuador) and Ashley had told her that we were going to the same mission, so she had looked me up on Facebook  SO.... long confusing story but on that day we discovered that we were all going to the same mission and that we all kinda knew each other.
Now here we are today... Sister Tebbs and I will be companions in a new area! (keep in mind we have both only been here 6 weeks!!!) Should be an adventure! :)

I am sad to be leaving Guelph, because I have grown pretty attached to the members and our investigators. I worked so hard in the area to go from nothing to something, and I kind of feel like it is my baby and now I am abandoning it! I know Sister Tuia will take good care of it and I already made her promise that she will keep working hard and get all those baptisms we have been working on. I also made her promise that when those baptisms come, she won't send me pictures to rub it in my face. :)

 I don't have a ton of time today but let's talk a little bit about  General Conference! If you weren't able to watch it, you should look it up and watch it soon. It was SOOOO good! Here are some of the big things that I got out of it. :)

1. Be obedient to the commandments!!!!! (especially that chastity one! :) 
2. Be member missionaries! :) (us full time missionaries love that, by the way:) 
3. Hold on to the Faith you have even if it isn't much. If you have nothing else just BELIEVE 
4. Keep your covenants! 
5. Family is SO important! Do everything we can to keep our families a place where we are safe from the world. 

I am SO thankful that we have a Prophet who leads and guides us today! Saturday and Sunday were proof that those Prophets and Apostles are called of God and we need to listen to the things we learn from them and APPLY it in our lives. It is not enough just to know the scriptures or know the commandments.... We must LIVE them! Thank you for all of your prayers, emails, letters and support! :) Love you all!

 Enjoy the Pics below !

P-day, outside of our basement apartment

Three companions - Prescott, Tuia, DeRuvo

Busy Week :)

Well a lot has happened since I last got to email home. About 5 minutes after sending that email we got a phone call from the AP's saying that they had needed to do an emergency transfer so we would be getting another companion.  So we drove to Brampton and waited in the office until the other companionship showed up. 

(Related: the AP's know most all of the missionaries that have came from Morgan and while we were talking they said that I give off the same "Morgan vibe" like Elder Prochnow.   I am going to take it as a compliment. There just must be something different about us Morgan people!) 

Sisters - Prescott, Tuia, DeRuvo

So we got our new companion, her name is Sister DeRuvo, she is from Italy and after a week of knowing her I already feel like we are best friends. She is FANTASTIC. So funny and talkative and a really great missionary. I think it has been a really great blessing having her. Unfortunately transfers are in a week and I bet we will all be separated :( but at least it has been a really fun 2 weeks.

At the Toronto Temple

Saturday we were able to go to the Temple in Brampton! It was so great! The only bad part is that we had to wake up at 3am to leave by 4am to get there at 5:30am for our session that was at 6am.   Needless to say we were a little tired, but it was so good to be able to go to the temple and be with other missionaries and really feel the Spirit. Never take the Temple for granted, especially all of us Uta

hns, it is an incredible blessing that SO many temples are SO close to us at all times.

We witnessed a serious miracle this week and that came through this kid named Paul. We met Paul through a member and he has some SERIOUS addictions that he is trying to give up. He has a ton of faith and it working hard to get through them he is just struggling. As we all know ,addictions of any kind are hard and so he is just trying to get through so that he can be free. Anyway, Paul had told us and other people more than once that there is no way that he will give up smoking weed. He said he wanted to give up alcohol and hard drugs, but he didn't see how weed was bad. So we went to a lesson with him Thursday at the church with the full intention of dropping him because we can't help him to change if he doesn't want to change. The second I saw him I knew things were different today, and I knew that we couldn't drop him. My feelings were right because as we started talking, he said he had just met with his doctor and she told him that they weed is in fact harmful to him, and that he really needs to consider giving it up because it is slowly killing him.  So.... Paul went from a kid who was NEVER going to give up smoking, to seeing that it is something that is harming him and he was considering it and saying that it is something he needs to do. I wanted to jump out of my seat and do a small victory dance. Seeing someone experience that little bit of change and want to be different is incredible! The lesson was really good that day. Paul was able to feel the Spirit and see that this is something that he wants. We are going to keep working with him and keep helping him. We know that he can overcome this, it is just getting him to see his potential and then to seek help from the Lord and other sources to really get through it. He is an awesome guy and we are hoping for the best for him.

Easter was good! We had 2 investigators come to church and all of the talks on the atonement were perfect for them to hear. We were able to eat Easter Dinner at a members house.

We met with a man named Egigu this week and by the end of our second meeting he was saying he wanted to be baptized. He is SO prepared. He came to church Sunday,  stayed for a baptism that took place after church, and asked us yesterday if he could move up the baptism we had already set for him. He is from Africa and is a really cool guy. We met him on the bus and he really is just so prepared. I will keep you all updated on that. 

District Meeting 

All I can say is it is just really fun to teach people and see them change and grow and love what they are hearing. The Restored Gospel really can and does change lives. These people just need to be given the opportunity to hear it! :)  Well this will be kind of short for today so I can get a chance to upload some pictures!  Have a great week! :)