Attitude is Everything !

Well it is a beautiful, cold Monday morning here in Canada! Transfer calls were last night... we didn't get a call so Sister Colvin and I will be staying here in Kitchener Waterloo for at least another 6 weeks. The big change came in the fact that the Elders are leaving the ward, so now Sister Colvin and I have the whole ward to ourselves. That will be different, but it will be nice because our area is now double what it has been and more importantly.... the whole ward can feed us now... not just the people in our area. :) Oh and the other great news is that Elder Prochnow is going to be my Zone Leader again. I am obviously so pumped about that! The Morgan, UT team has been reunited!

Our District for this transfer

      Me, Hermana Reid, Sister Colvin, Hermana Sandall, 

Elder Healey, Elder Ikeda, Elder Williams, Elder Mangum, and Elder Howell

This week was good! Monday night we had dinner with a Sister in the ward who served a mission with her husband in Nigeria in the 80's. She showed us slides and told us more about her experience there and it was pretty incredible. The people there live such humble lives and are so willing to learn about the Gospel. She said that it was a hard experience, but that it really put things into perspective for her. We really are so blessed to live where we live and have the blessings that we do. It would have been tough to serve in an area like that, I couldn't even believe most of the stuff she was telling us because it is just so foreign to me. She is a pretty amazing lady and I learned a lot of her and her experiences. 

Halloween also took place this week.... it was pretty lame if I'm being honest. haha We just had to go in early and do our weekly planning, I didn't even see anyone in costumes so..... that was great. :)

We have some people that we are teaching now. They are a couple that the Sisters in the other ward were teaching, but then they moved into our area so now we will be teaching them! So that is exciting. Also.. we should have a baptism this month of a 12 year old boy whose family members are members, but he just hasn't been baptized yet. So that will be good for them. :)

We did exchanges this week and I was with Sister Tofa. It is always a blast with her. She is awesome. She is the Sister Training Leader that I have done the most exchanges with. It just seems like she follows me around! haha

Sister Tofa and I making waffles at Sue's for dinner

Sister Tofa and I. During our exchange and she accidentally brought the phone from her area into my area, so we were joking that we were the Assistants to the President because they are the only companionship in the mission where both missionaries have a cell phone so.... AP Prescott and AP Tofa

Sue fed us ribs... I was in Heaven. #iheartribs

Yesterday Sister Colvin and I were asked to speak in sacrament meeting on the 17th and the topic is tithing. So what I would love is if you wonderful people who read my blog would send me either some experiences about tithing or talks on tithing that I could incorporate into my talk and share with the ward. It has to be 15 minutes long so... we better start preparing asap. :) 

I was REALLY loving Canada this day

It is crazy that it is November. Next week is Remembrance Day so Pday will be on Tuesday. (There are SO many holidays on Monday's here in Canada... it feels a little excessive) 

FYI... my birthday is not too far away.. the 19th to be exact. :) So... feel free to send me Happy Birthday emails. haha I will be the big 23... I am getting OLD. 

Well... I think that is all for this week! 

Things I have learned this week... attitude is everything! If you want to have a crappy day... you will have a crappy day... so..... tell yourself that you will have a good day everyday and things will work out.  Even when it is tough. :)

Love you all!! (even though I am not exactly sure who reads this every week... I probably love you anyway.. ;)

Random Pic - The dog is huge!

The middle of nowhere - makes me feel like I am home !

Well I still can't believe it is actually Monday again!! Monday's come around quite quickly! This week has been good!

We did an exchange and this time I went to Brampton with Sister Tofa. It was fun, the feel of Brampton is completely different from Hamilton, and it was nice to get out for a bit. That is the apartment and area that Colton Kilmer served in for awhile while he was here so it was cool to see his name on some of the teaching records from when he was here.

Yesterday the family from Colombia that we are teaching came to church and they loved it! They are looking forward to coming back next week.We have been able to teach them about once or twice a week and the ward has been getting to know them, and things are going well and we are excited. They are wonderful people!

Yesterday we went out to Cayuga to have dinner and visit some of the members  It is about a 45 minute drive, but it is totally worth it. I love getting out to the middle of nowhere, it makes me feel like I am home! The members even lit a nice bonfire outside, and made me really feel at home.

I also am just so in love with the members here, and I am pretty sure they quite like me too.. :) I am going to have a hard time when I leave this area! I have really come to love these people!

Everyday I think about what my life would be like if I would have never met these people, and I must say, it would have been a pretty sad life!! 

Okay, I know more things happened this week but........I can't think of anything right now.... So.... oops. :) I am still alive, life is good, members feed us nice food every.single.day. (Hence why I have a chubby face in all my pictures. :) haha it's fine. #livingthedream

My Companion is da best! She is starting to crack jokes and it is THE funniest thing ever! She is learning from the best... aka me. :)

I am going to do my best to keep better track of this week so I have more to write next Monday... but let's be honest, weeks flow together and honestly everything feels like one long day to me!!

Have a wonderful, wonderful week! For those in my family who are saying bye to Parker this week... keep your heads up, don't cry too much :), because missions are the best and the two of us are going to be home before you know it! :)

Busy......Hot.....Storms......Faith

This week was a pretty busy week, if feels like a lot has happened. Monday we got together with the zone to play some games at the church. If you want to see something funny all you have to do is get about 12 companionship's of Elders and Sisters together to play chair soccer. Actually, none of you would probably think it is funny but... I think it is pretty funny. :)

Elder Palmer and Karly
P-Day with the Zone

We had our Skills and Interviews with President Scott. That was really nice. It is always nice to be able to talk to him and Sister Scott. They really know how to make you feel like a million bucks.

It has been wicked hot. I don't think I have ever drank so much water in my life. Tracting is not the most fun thing in the heat but, we do it anyway. haha  We had a sisters exchange on Friday and it went really, really well. Sister Tofa came to Hamilton with me and we spent the entire day finding. We had set a goal to find 3 new investigators and what did we do?.... well we found 3 new investigators! We talked to a bunch of awesome people and 3 were really interested. We were able to get return appointments and Sister Puruganan and I will go back this week and teach them. One of the guys was really grateful. We talked to him about the Book of Mormon and he said that he has been through a lot and he is willing to try anything if he thinks it will bring him happiness. He gave Sister Tofa and I pins of Jesus Christ. It was super nice. He was a really great guy.

The day was extremely hot and then out of nowhere a storm rolled in. We got a call from the Zone Leaders saying that we all needed to go inside because there had been some tornado warnings. So we went inside and the storm hit. There was a ton of lightening and rain. The storm let up so we decided that we would be ok to drive to Oakville to exchange with the Sisters again. That was probably not the best idea because just as we were getting on the highway is started raining so much. I could barely see and cars were pulling over.

It was pretty scary. Thankfully it let up. But.... after the exchange when we were driving towards Hamilton there was a ton of lightening. I don't think I have ever seen lightening like that before. It got really dark, started to rain, and once again there I was driving down the highway and couldn't see a thing. Thankfully we made it home safe. The power was out and I am fairly convinced we almost got struck by lightening but, all in all a successful day! Thankfully it has started cooling off. Hopefully this will be an easier week because it won't be so hot!

And on a more serious note...... This week I have been thinking a lot about Faith. My faith, the faith of my investigators, the faith of the members around me. This whole mission experience just feels like one big trial of my faith. It is rough! It would be a whole lot easier if Heavenly Father didn't love us so much that He gives us trials to make us better, stronger people. This week I have read this talk multiple times and would encourage everyone to watch it. When I heard this during conference I feel like it was a big changing point in my mission. It helped me a lot and continues to help me to this day. Because let's face it, sometimes our faith is shaken. But what I do know is that the Church is true and that all the other little trials that come my way won't get me down if I hold on to what I do know to be true. Of course Elder Holland says it much better than I can, so watch the talk and if anyone is struggling with their faith (or maybe I am the only one.. :) think about what he says. I know that it really helps me!   Have a great week!

I have killed at least 10 of these nasty critters since living here. If anyone could identify the make and model of this stupid thing that would be great. THEY ARE GROSS!

Good News !!

Well hello family and friends! Looks like we all made it through another week! :) I have some good news! The mission policy for emails has changed... we can now email friends! #raisedaroof So..... go crazy, kids and send me some emails! karly.prescott@myldsmail.net :) I want to hear about what's going on! The only bad thing with this being I will probably never have time to reply especially in this area. The mission president does give us permission to spend more time on the computers but the libraries here only allow you to have an hour a day so..... just send some emails and I will respond if I can or write letters back. I finally got some letters this week! They were written and sent around the same time I left the MTC, though, so it really does take about a month to get mail here. I also sent some letters home so it will be interesting to see how long that takes.

 This week was better than last week, I hope that pattern continues. Everything gets a little bit easier as I get more and more experience with it.The only thing that is not getting easier is dealing with this weather. I freeze ALL. THE. TIME. I can bundle up and and wear a million layers and this cold still finds a way to cut through and leave me miserable. (OK maybe that is a little dramatic, but it is cold) Last night we walked about 2 miles in the cold until we were able to find a bus. Bus systems are different at night so we though we were going to have to walk the whole way. I guess it could have been worse, but it still was pretty bad.

 This week I did my first exchange with the other set of sisters in this area. It was fun to see how another missionary works and the different things they do in their teaching and finding. More and more I am being able to pull ideas of the kind of missionary I want to be and the way that I want to teach and do things.

 At District Meeting this week President Scott came. It was a little intimidating because I had to give a thought and then role play with him, but it was good. He is such a great guy and I am so grateful to have him as my mission President. He really is so loving and cares about us individually and that really is good to know. Talking with him makes me feel like a million bucks. He really needs to come around more often. haha

We did a ton of finding this week and still didn't have much success. We need to find people before we can teach people and the finding part is proving to be hard. Some people will want to listen but a lot of people open their doors, say something that is usually not very nice :), and then quickly close the door. Oh well, we'll just keep going and eventually we'll find those people who are really prepared. I promise cool and great things happen during the week but I just cannot seem to remember them right now...... I guess this email will be short then. :) But here are a few random things!

 1. St. Patrick's Day was like a serious thing here.... I am fairly confident that the college students (did I mention Guelph is a serious college town?) were all drinking from Saturday night all through Sunday. Which meant we got to see a lot of people make complete fools of themselves all day long. Also they don't just use the holiday as an excuse to drink, they also went crazy with the wearing of green. And not just a green shirt here or there, they were wearing green mini skirts and huge bows and wigs and it really was out of control. I have never seen anything like that.

2. So my District leader, Elder Dewey, is the son of a famous artist.. Simon Dewey? I didn't know who he was, but I guess his dad does a lot of the famous LDS paintings. I am sure a lot of you will know who he is.

 Sorry that was so short.... I will try and do better next week. :) Missionary work really is amazing. Everyday I learn so much and my testimony is strengthened. This week I really have seen the importance of a testimony. People will argue doctrine or not want to talk with you but a testimony is something short and simple yet so powerful that you can leave it with everyone. It is hard for people to dispute something you KNOW to be true. There is no arguing with that. :) So I challenge all of you to constantly strengthen your testimonies, in whatever it may be, because that is the most powerful thing we have when it comes to sharing the Gospel with others. Have a great week!