Spring Baptisms and Easter

Another super good week! And finally some warmer weather! We were able to spend a lot of time outside this week talking with people and it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately it is going to get cold again for the next few days... :( but... at least Spring is here! :)

Amanda's Baptism

Amanda was baptized yesterday! It went really well. Her family was able to be there and it was so good to see them all together. The Gospel has really spread fast in their family and they are all so happy. It is wonderful to see. The Relief Society room was packed with members there to support Amanda on her big day. Sister Fragapane and I did a musical number with a few of the other girls in the ward. Amanda bore her testimony after she was baptized and it was SO perfect. I just really am so glad I was able to be a part of all of it. After the baptism Janet was so happy and she came up and hugged me and thanked me. But really I feel like I should be thanking her because knowing them has been such a blessing to me as well. 

From left to right...  Me, Norm (baptized February 16, 2014), Janet (Baptized February 16, 2014), Brother Raynor, Amanda (baptized April 13, 2014), Ben (getting baptized April 20, 2014), Treena (Baptized March 30, 2014), Sister Fragapane. And then Ben and Treena's youngest of 3 little boys is down in the front. :) His baptismal date is set for about 8 years from now. :)

So many wonderful things have come from the missionaries and Janet running into each other at a bus stop 6 months ago! And I am SUPER glad I have been able to be a part of it.

So this is the last week of the transfer already.. this really has been a super fast and fun 5 weeks. I am not even going to try and guess what is going to happen with transfers, but I will probably end up saying bye to all of the members again just in case.. This will be the 3rd time that I will have said bye. haha They probably won't believe me anymore!

Sister Griffin and I on exchanges

We are having the Easter Brunch this Friday so if I am leaving at least I will have this extra day to spend with all of the ward! I am really going to miss everyone  like crazy if I do leave.... but I guess we will all just have to wait and see what happens. :)

In honor of Easter everyone should check out the cool website that the church has up. I really liked the video on this website so... everyone should watch it! It helps us to remember why we celebrate Easter.

http://easter.mormon.org/?cid=HPTU041514694

I hope that everyone has a good week and a Happy Easter! :)

Another Great Week

Greetings from Canada! Did everyone hear that both the women's and men's Canadian Hockey teams won gold? Everyone around here was pretty stoked about it. The stereotype really is correct.. Canadians LOVE their hockey. We obviously didn't see any of the hockey games, but we heard all about it. So I feel some pride in the fact that Canada won! 

Haircut time

Another good week! Janet and Norm were confirmed yesterday, which was exciting. They were very touched by the whole experience and I think they are excited to be able to move forward in the church. Sacrament meeting was really good yesterday. One of the members just got back from his mission this past week (he was serving in the same place as Grant Clunas and knew who Grant was) He gave his homecoming talk and it was very powerful. He talked about the Light of Christ and also experiencing a change of heart. He shared different experiences of how people he taught on his mission experienced a change of heart, and then he talked about the most important change,  the change that he saw in himself. He had a very sincere and powerful testimony. I am sure everyone in that room felt that Spirit. Max, who was recently baptized, came up to me after and told me that he thought it was very powerful and there were multiple people in tears. It was cool. Church is always just the thing I need to keep me going for another week.

The Meyer Family - members in our ward

Last night we had a cool experience. Some of Brother Mitchell's coworkers have had questions about the church,  so he invited them to meet with us. We had dinner and then were able to talk with them after. All 3 of them are from Mennonite backgrounds and one of them could, "thump a pastor in a Bible Bash" as Brother Mitchell would say. haha  Anyway.. we visited with them and were able to teach them the Restoration and a bit more about our beliefs. If a year ago someone would have told me that I would be able to sit down and hold my own in a conversation with people who know the Bible like the back of their hand,  I would have told them they were crazy. But... here I am.. able to do that. It is pretty cool.. Amazing what some study and the Spirit can do for you.

That is just more proof of how much I have grown and changed in a year! It is pretty cool what can happen when we apply ourselves and take the time to let God shape us into the people that he needs us to be. 

We will be having another baptism this weekend, his name is Ethan. We really have been so blessed lately with success in our work. I will talk more about Ethan next week.

I just sure wish the weather would start to warm up around here. We have had a few days where it has felt like it might warm up, but it is always short lived. I am beginning to think all of this snow will never, ever melt. It does feel like Spring is coming.. the days are getting longer and that makes this Sister Happy!

I hope that everyone has a great week!

This mission really has changed my life

This was another great week full of a lot of exciting things!!

First off I hit my year mark and so we did some fun things to celebrate that. (I don't have much time so I will just let the pictures explain some of the things that we did. :)

It still blows my mind that I can now say that a year ago I was a missionary. That is a long, long time!

Janet and Norm were baptized this weekend, and it was the greatest experience. The day before the baptism we met with them, and hearing both of their testimonies brought me to tears. They are so amazing and so grateful for the Gospel in their lives. I can honestly say that if not one good thing happened on my mission except for meeting them and seeing their progress, I would have still said it was all worth it. I could not stop smiling and was so happy to see them so happy. Thankfully I have had a lot of wonderful things happen throughout my mission but it is amazing how just one thing can really make all the hard days 100% worth it.

Sister Colvin and I have really started to see so many blessings in this area. The work just continues to progress and I feel like the ward has been pretty excited about it. We were able to achieve the "standards of excellence" again this week and we saw a lot of really great things happen. It almost feels like I worked hard for a year and then the week that I celebrated my year mark Heavenly Father just poured out the blessing upon us. Pretty great!

For Valentines we bought some roses to give away to people and then someone had given the Chinese (speaking) sisters roses so we decided to take some pictures

So I feel like this is all over the place and the computer here at the library tells me I only have 18 minutes left, so I will wrap this up for this week and then when I am back to the Family History center Monday I will write something longer. But I DID take a lot of pictures this week so that should make up for it, right? :)

Burning stuff at the Mitchell's to celebrate my 1 year mark

Only they would leave dead ducks hanging in the tree. haha Brother Mitchell says if I ever need a good dose of Redneck that I just need to come on by. haha

Brother  and Sister Weber - members of our ward

Good old Canadian Humor
These houses have "a" and "b" sides.. a member lives on the B side of this and their neighbors are apparently pretty funny. haha They said missionaries always get a picture of this

This mission really has changed my life and I am seeing that more and more lately as I compare where I was a year ago and where I am now. I don't know what I would do without these experiences and all the wonderful people that I have met!

I hope that everyone has a great week! :)

1 Year Mark !

Well... it has officially been a year since I gave my farewell talk.. and tomorrow it will have been a year since I was set apart as a full time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.. and Wednesday it will have been a year since I put on a name tag and entered the MTC... and that is pretty crazy. :) It doesn't feel like that long ago that all of that happened, but a whole lot has happened in that year! It is fun to look back on how far I have come.. I could have never imagined how great and also how hard a mission would be, but I don't regret for one second coming on a mission and I am so grateful for all of the things I have learned in this past year.

Last time i took a picture here it was SO hot‏

So since Sister Colvin and I started out our missions together in the MTC and are now here together a year later we are going to do some celebrating this week! Not exactly sure what we are going to do but... hopefully next week I will have some pictures of nice adventures we will have! 

This week was good. Janet and Norm are still on track for baptism this Sunday.. Elder So'o interviewed them yesterday and said the interviews were probably the most spiritual interviews he has ever done. Janet and Norm truly do love the Gospel so much and are so grateful for it in their lives and I am very excited for their baptisms this Sunday! I even agreed to sing a song with Sister Colvin at the baptism.. I am turning into a little singer here! 

Well, once again, I wish I had more time to write... but I don't :) so..... Have a great week! And everyone go and do something to celebrate my "1 year Mark!" 

Skogstad Family

This is Anne, I just thought this was the cutest picture ever. She is 78 and I feel like she is one of my best friends! 

Brother and Sister Sellars

Busy Crazy CROWDED Week!

February has arrived! And... in 10 days it will be my year mark!! We are trying to plan some fun things to celebrate.. Crazy that Sister Colvin and I started out together in the MTC last February and now we are together this February... My how time flys!

Sister Tofa and I last pday... She went back home
 to Australia this week. :(

The Rowden's had a "Welcome Back" party for us when they found out we didn't get transferred! The party was complete with a banner, balloons, tiaras, feather boas, and cake with candles! They are the best! It was so much fun!

This has been another busy/crazy week! 

Thursday we got a phone call from the Chinese speaking sisters saying that they would be moving in with us.  Apparently they were supposed to be living with another set of Chinese speaking sisters, but the apartment manager wouldn't let them so... we were the next choice.  Sister Colvin and I hurried and tried to make the apartment so everything would fit, and then about an hour later Elder Parker and Elder Prochnow show up and they just start hauling loads of huge furniture into our house. Being a missionary really teaches you how to "go with the flow".  One minute we were living in an apartment all to ourselves and the next minute we were cramming beds into a room.

It was pretty stressful and it has been a weird couple of days,  but things have settled down and it feels like we can move on with life. It has been fun having Sister Willoughby and Sister Mak with us! They have been teaching us some Chinese and that seems to make the whole "sharing a bathroom with 3 other girls thing" worth it. ;) We don't know how long they will be staying here, but.. I am glad they are here so... It will be good if they stay forever. It makes things more fun to have more people around! And... you know me.. I love to have fun! :)

Sister Willoughby, Sister Mak, me and Sister Colvin
after moving all of the stuff in

During all the chaos of the Thursday move, the Bishop called us and asked us to meet him at the church because he had some good news that had to do with Janet. So we hurried to the church! Now a little background.. we had been praying and doing everything we could to figure out how we could find Janet a place to live. Nothing seemed to be working.. Both Norm and Janet had been praying and none of us could think of anything... but.. our prayers worked because the Bishop said that there was a sister in the ward who would let Janet rent a room and so... just like that.. Our prayers were answered! Now another cool part to this story is that the night before Elder So'o had been on the phone with Elder Prochnow and Elder Parker and they were brainstorming how this could all work out so that Janet would reach her baptismal date. They weren't coming up with anything until out of nowhere Elder Prochnow goes, "Woah, I just had an impression that there is someone in the ward who has a place for her to stay." And he couldn't have been more right. :)

We went and told Janet and she was SO excited! And Norm too was so excited... Now Norm has moved his baptismal date to February 16th and they both will be getting baptized! It has been a serious blessing and I am SO glad to still be in this area so that I get to be a part of it. They are amazing people and I am very, very excited for them!

It snowed some more this week... everyone here is amazed that there has been this much snow. It has been a fun week, just very busy. Things are still going very well with the area. We have hit our goals again this week and are seeing a lot of great things happening. 

Just staying busy, which I guess is what it is all about! :)

11 whole months !

Does anybody know what today is??? Nope? Well... I will tell you... today marks 11 months since my cute parents dropped me off at the MTC... 11 whole months!! It is a strange strange thing, and pretty exciting to look back on what has happened in the past 11 months.. I have met so many new people and have done things I never thought I could do and have learned so much! 

The day that the thermometer said -21 and it was apparently -40 with the wind chill... and also they said if your skin was exposed to it for more than 5 minutes you could get frost bite... and then... it rained Friday. Go figure!

 This week was good. The weather got crazy cold Tuesday and Wednesday. Everyone said it was -40*C with the wind chill so... that is pretty darn cold. Thankfully we had quite a few appointments so we tried to stay in a house or in a car most of the day. On that Tuesday we got a funny phone call from Elder Prochnow and Elder Parker (the Zone Leaders)... It started out with a," Hey Sisters..... ummm..... do you think that you could come and jump our car??" Their battery was going bad and even in their underground parking the car was way too cold and was not starting. So... we went and helped them with that... This is now twice I have had to jump a car on my mission.. Heavenly Father really was preparing me for this when my car would die ALL THE TIME back at home. Glad that it wasn't all for nothing. :)

My outfit on a freezing cold P-day

So after we made it through the freezing weather things were good. We had a Zone Training Wednesday and then we did exchanges that night. Sister Tofa came here with me and it was a lot of fun.. She leaves at the end of this transfer and it will be sad to see her go. She will go back to Australia and I am going to have to convince her to move to the states at some point so that this isn't the last time that I see her ever. 

Ice cream cake that Elder So'o had made for
Sister Willouhby's birthday

All of the sisters with the cake

We had some good lessons this week. Janet and Norm are progressing SO well. Norm has really started getting in to the Book of Mormon and I cannot believe how fast he is reading through it. Norm even committed to baptism which is pretty amazing. Three months ago you would have never even seen him wanting to sit down to talk with missionaries. It really is a testimony to me of how much power is in the Book of Mormon. He really has a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and you can see it working in his life. We are really excited for them! 

We had a really great week! We hit "standards" which I haven't done since the first transfer of my mission. So this means that we have 2 progressing investigators, 2 investigators with baptismal dates, 2 investigators at church, 4 lessons taught with members present and 2 new investigators. It was pretty great to see our work paying off and also seeing the tender mercies. We were quite blessed this week!

Transfers will be coming up soon and... I really have no feeling as to what will happen but... If I do leave I already know that I will be so sad about it. I really love this ward SO much. Since we have had a lot of dinner appointments lately I feel like I have gotten to know the members more and more and it makes me sad that I will have to leave! It is a great thing about missions that you get to meet so many new people but it is a sad thing that you have to leave and that some people you may never see again. Oh well... I guess it is all a part of it!

Brother Mitchell (the vet) brought this cute thing home from work the other day.. She had broken her jaw and the farmer didn't want to pay the money to fix it so Brother Mitchell said that she would take her and then he just did the surgery and now they have her so... if at any moment you want to buy a mini horse that would be GREAT. :) 

Oh and yesterday the new Stake Presidency came here for ward conference. They spoke and taught all of the classes and it was really cool. The Stakes theme is, "Feed the Spirit, Nourish the Soul" and they talked a lot about how important it is for all of us to be continually "feeding" our Spirits. So... if you haven't read your scriptures lately... try that. :) If you haven't said a prayer lately... go do that. :) There are so many things we can do to feed our Spirits and it really does help! 

Well... I hope this was a bit more of a "substantial" email then some of my others have been. I hope everyone has a great week! :)

Have a ever mentioned that there are squirrels EVERYWHERE here??

We play this game where we see how long it takes to see a squirrel when we leave the house and it usually only takes about 10 seconds... Case in point.. looked out the window... squirrel sitting on the emergency exit stairs outside our apartment

Happy New Year

Happy New Year Everyone!!

Sister Tofa and Karly at the New Years Day Read-a-thon

Glow in the dark glasses

The weather is probably the biggest news this week. Lots and lots of cold... lots and lots of snow and then lots and lots of more cold to come in the next few days! I guess Canada has decided that I really need the Canadian experience.  This is the worst winter they have had in years and years everyone keeps telling us.

This was after we had cleaned our car off at 9:00 last night

Thank goodness for boots, coats, and mitts

Janet and Norm came to church on Sunday and again loved everything about it. Norm has been reading the Book of Mormon a lot and really loves it. He had basically written off religion because of bad experiences that he has had in the past, but his experiences with the Book of Mormon and with church are really changing his mind, and he is starting to make some big changes in his life!

Well.... I really can't think of much to say and... I don't really have time to say it. The internet is down at the libraries so the other missionaries are here so I have to get off, but.... once again here are some pictures... hopefully that helps.  And... next week I
will write the blog email first so it can be a good one. :)