The Beginning of the End,,,,,,

Well today marks the start of my last transfer! It seems pretty crazy and mostly doesn't even feel real! 

On Da Lake

We did not get a transfer call last night so it looks like Sister Mendenhall and I will both be finishing our missions here in Oakville! 

Some things came up and so we had to move Joe's baptisms a few weeks, but he is looking forward to it and is excited. From the looks of it as of right now we should have at least 2 baptisms this transfer! :) Such a good way to finish off my mission.

This week was fun... I sent a lot of pictures so I will let them tell the story as we need to leave the library soon! We are going to Hamilton to say bye to the missionaries that go home this week. It is a sad thing that you make all of these new friends and then they just leave. :( I guess things can't last forever!

I hope everyone has a great week! :)

Sister Mendenhall and I at Niagara Falls  - last week's P-day

Tia (a member/friend) and Karly

New Companion - New Area !

Not much time to email today! We have to email in a library here in Oakville and time is limited so I will just keep this short! 

Oakville is great! It is taking some time to get used to the area but I really do like it so far.   Sister Mendenhall is a lot of fun and the work is moving forward here. 

With Sister Mendenhall

Oakville is right on Lake Ontario and it is beautiful!

We did a lot of finding this week and were able to find 4 new investigators. We didn't have many people to teach first getting to the area so it is good that we have started to build that up!

This is a really nice area! The people are great and I am just looking forward to getting to know everyone in the ward! 

Sister Shurtliff stayed the night with me (before transfers) and then we drove to Brampton the next morning.

With Elder Palmer

With Elder Ikeda

At the Mission Office on Transfer Day

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! :)

Meet Sister Fragapane !

Hi everyone!! Meet Sister Fragapane, my new companion! 

St. Patrick's Day - we decided to wear the same outfit !

So first off.... I bet you are wondering how you pronounce her name... I will try and explain it here. "Frag-a-pawn-eh" It is an Italian name and most people have a hard time saying it, but the ward is slowly starting to figure it out. Sister Fragapane was born in Argentina, then moved to Germany when she was 5. So she speaks both Spanish, German, and English (which she only learned her English in the past 9 months since being on her mission and her English is SO good, it is very impressive!)

Sister Colvin and I drove to Brampton on Tuesday morning and got our new companions. 

Sister Colvin and I 

Transfers are always fun in the sense that we get to go and see a lot of missionaries that we haven't seen in a long time. It is always a nice reunion, hence all of the pictures from the day! (See more pics at the bottom of the post)

Elder Washburn, Elder So'o, Sister Colvin and I

Elder Vanderstel, Elder So'o, Sister Fragapane, and I

The MTC...........

Sister Zerkle, Sister Lamb, Sister Colvin and I

I haven't seen Sister Lamb since the morning that we arrived in Canada, so it was fun for all of us to be together again!

And ONE YEAR LATER !

After transfers,  we got back to the area and got to work! Things are going well! We are needing to work on building up our teaching pool again, that is the problem when you baptize people.. there is no one left to teach. haha But... as Elder Prochnow once told me.. it is a good problem to have. :) 

The weather is still pretty Canadian here.... We went from +7*C Tuesday to.... 5 inches of snow Wednesday and about -10*C... and then it has been pretty cold ever since. Some of the snow is starting to melt. I saw some grass for the first time in what feels like a century so that was good. :) But really is is still freezing when we are out working. I have the faith that someday it will warm up but.... just not sure when.

So I have some pretty sweet news... At our last Zone Conference President Scott told us that there was going to be a Special Meeting March 22nd and they told us all to prepare spiritually and that all the missionaries would be able to go and that we would need to look out best... So we knew that someone pretty "high-up" in the church must be coming.. but we didn't know who. Well... now we know who is coming and we are all pretty excited about it. Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum 12 Apostles will be here... in Brampton... this Saturday.. and we all get to go and listen to him speak! I am really looking forward to this once in a lifetime experience! It is going to be pretty amazing so I look forward to letting all of you know how that goes next week. :)

Elder David A. Bednar

Things are good here! Lovin' my new companion and am grateful to still be here in Kitchener Waterloo! 

Elder Lasley and I
He got transferred to another part of the mission. I served with him in Hamilton and then here in Kitchener.

Finally got Elder So'o to do a real smile in a picture :)‏

          Sister Taylor and I‏

              Sister DeRuvo and I‏

                                 Sister Raymer and I‏

 I never see her enough but I love this girl! She was in the same ward as me my freshman year of college, I never really knew her, but then we met each other in the MTC and we knew that we knew each other from somewhere. She is so great. She is going home in July to go back to school as well. 

                              Sister Willoughby and I‏

She is no longer a roomie here in Kitchener.. she was transferred to London

A bit of a shock - I'm staying in Kitchener Waterloo !

Transfers!! 

After thinking that I was a goner for sure... giving a "farewell" talk in Sacrament meeting yesterday... and saying goodbye to everyone...... I am not leaving! I will be staying here in Kitchener Waterloo for at least another 6 weeks! It is pretty crazy! I am still in a bit of shock about staying. For the first time in 4 transfers, though, we did have a bit of a change.  Sister Colvin will be headed to Mississauga and I will be getting a new companion here.  She is from Germany and  has been out about 7 months..  I hear she is super funny.

It is pretty crazy... I am excited! It will be different to be here without Sister Colvin.. that will be a big adjustment! It will be good... I love this ward and this is going to make it even harder to leave when I finally do have to. Because that day will inevitably come.... but until then. Kitchener for a bit longer. :) Pretty exciting! 

Today we have a fun P-day planned to say goodbye to everyone who is leaving so I will make this short..

I hope everyone has a great week! :)

With a cute little girl from our ward

We had the largest District in the mission, but now after transfers our District is going to be much different and probably a lot smaller.

With the Mitchell Family

With Henry Mitchell
He and his mom and little Brother and little Sister left for Utah yesterday for 3 weeks so he was saying goodbye to us at church because he didn't know if he would see us again. He is the cutest little thing. He kept asking when he would see us again and he didn't want to have to say goodbye. He said he was going to miss us if we left. He also asked me if I liked "rainbow loom" bracelets, I said yes, and then right after Relief Society he came in and gave me one that he said he had made the night before. I am going to keep it for forever! 

With Sister Rowden (ward member)

All our name tags on the fridge.  Both Sister Colvin and Sister Willoughby will be leaving. Sister Mak will be staying and getting a new companion and we will all still live together.

With our Ward Mission Leader, Brother Olsen and his wife.

With the Despain Family

Baptism ~ Staying Put ~ Chinese New Year

So this week was pretty sweet to say the least.... remember Max who I told you about last week? Well... he got baptized yesterday and it was really great! Here is a brief rundown of the whole story again... 

Max's baptism

"Well when they say, "Expect Miracles" I now know that is 100% true because this week we saw a serious miracle... and his name is Max. :) Max is from Nigeria and 3 weeks ago after driving by our Stake Center multiple times he felt prompted that he needed to call the church. So he went home, looked up the address online, and called the number. They asked if he was a "single adult," he said yes.. so they told him to go to the Young Single Adult Branch. So he did, the Elders started teaching him, and then the next Saturday I met Max. I started talking to him, asked how long ago he came to Canada, he said 7 years ago, and then I asked how old he was when he came here.. he said 30.. So that makes Max 37... definitely not able to attend YSA! haha So... he went to church at the YSA branch the next day and then we did a hand off lesson this past week. He already had a baptismal date for Feb 2nd, but we met with him and we all felt he would be ready for January 26th. So... we taught him everything and he was baptized yesterday! It was SO.COOL." 

So many of the ward members stayed to the baptism that we had right after church and it was really great that everyone was there to show him that support. I think he was a bit surprised to have everyone there. haha It was really special and everything went so well. My favorite thing was during the actual baptism seeing all of the little kids up surrounding the glass watching the baptism. It was just really neat and I am grateful that I was able to be a part of it. We are really excited for Max, and I am grateful we will be sticking around for another 6 weeks so that we will be able to get to know him more. 

Oh and there is the other thing... We didn't get transferred. The ward had us all but packed up and moved. haha Everyone was saying bye and getting pictures  (see below) and fully planning that at least one of us would leave but... here we are. They were all pretty shocked and I'm not going to lie, so were we. We though FOR SURE something would have to happen. We have been here forever. But... I guess God has other plans and there are still things here that we need to do.

With Brother and Sister Ince

With Janet and Norm

With part of the Mitchell Family
This was before we knew we weren't getting transferred. we had to take pictures just in case!

This is Katelyn Rowden, she is a senior in high school and is a member of this ward. She was sad to think that we might have been leaving and she wrote us the nicest letters. needless to say she is happy that we are staying

Well... random fact. A member told me that Keith Urban was having a concert in London, Ontario either this past weekend or this weekend so.... that is just a kick in the face for this country music deprived Sister! Oh and The Band Perry had a concert at this place that is practically next door to us. Oh well... I have made it this long without Keith Urban.. I guess I can make it a bit more :)

This week at District meeting everyone decided to play the "What year were you born game?!" Now this is not my most favorite game and you will see why... A few missionaries say they were born in 1992 (which is fine), a lot of them say they were born in 1993 (like Elder Prochnow... who after saying that goes, "Sister Prescott, weren't you born in like 1989 or something?" and then he just laughed) And then there are the two Elders that say they were born in 1995..... 1995!! I was 5 years old when they were born! haha They are babies! It is so weird! So they like to make me feel like the old grandma. haha They are all a lot of fun, but it blows my mind how at 23 I can feel so old!

Celebrating the Chinese New Year

We also celebrated Chinese New Year. The Mandarin speaking Sister put together a big party and it was great! All of our investigators enjoyed it and a lot of people came. It is now the Year of the Horse, which is actually what I am. These are some of the characteristics of people who are "horses".   I think they are pretty fitting if I do say so myself :)  

This week was a lot of fun and I finally took some pictures so enjoy!

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

Staying in Kitchener Waterloo for Christmas

Our District BEFORE transfers

Transfer calls were last night and Sister Colvin and I will be staying in Kitchener Waterloo again, in spite of the fact that basically everyone else in our District got whitewashed. haha We have a lot of good things happening with this ward, though, so we are happy to be staying. :)

It finally snowed a decent amount this week and it has been super cold. It has been nice, though. The snow is pretty and makes me happy so I am ok with it. At least it looks like Christmas!

I sang in sacrament meeting again yesterday.... yes, I don't know what has come over me. haha Sister Colvin, Brother Olsen (our ward mission leader), Brother Shulske (who is actually from Idaho and taught Sister Colvin primary), Amanda, Sue and I sang the song "Virgin's Lullaby" by Katherine Nelson and Jason Deere... Click on the video below and you will be able to listen to it. It is super pretty and everyone said it went really well. There were lots of people in the congregation crying... that is when you know you have done well. :)

Janet came to church again and is still loving everything! We have set a baptismal date for February 16th, but we will keep working with her and I am sure she will move it up. We weren't in Relief Society because we were helping the Bishop out with his sharing time in Primary, but apparently Janet announced to all the Sisters that she is getting baptized. She is such a wonderful Spirit!

Starting to get excited for Christmas (even though it still feels weird that it is next week...) It will be nice to be here with all of these ward members that we already know for the Holidays! They are wonderful and it will be a lot of fun!

I hope everyone has a great week preparing for the Holidays! And remember..... we celebrate Christmas because of CHRIST.... not because of all the parties, food and gifts.. So everyone take a step back and think about what the Savior has done for you and focus a little more on that and a little less on the things that aren't exactly that important in the eternal perspective of things. :)

Haha , Cat's paws remind me of mittens and that is

why this is even remotely funny