Baptism !

What a long and crazy week full of A LOT of different things!

First things first.... We had a baptism... SURPRISE!! I hadn't really talked much about this because it was kind of an interesting situation and I didn't want to "jinx" anything.  I figured I would wait to talk about it AFTER the baptism and confirmation were over. :)

So the story goes like this... Frank is the father of Pedro, and years and years ago he left the church and has been working to come back. Pedro was never baptized but his father really wanted him to be a member of the Church. So at the beginning of 2013 Pedro started meeting with the missionaries and Frank was working on getting re-baptized. Fast forward to this month... Frank got permission to be re-baptized and therefore things worked out for Pedro to get baptized so this week we planned a baptism and then had the baptism on Saturday and the Confirmation on Sunday.

It was a really special thing. They had their family there and it was a really good experience for them. My favorite part of the baptism was probably when Frank's daughter was giving a talk on baptism and at the end of the talk she sang a song about baptism in Portuguese. It was a beautiful song and even though I couldn't understand any of the words the Spirit was so strong and it was just a really cool moment. The Baptism went well as did the Confirmation. The Holy Ghost has been on my mind A LOT this week and it was a really special moment to see someone who once had the Gift of the Holy Ghost, who then lost it for a time, get it again. You could really see the difference in him and I know that is the moment that he has been looking forward to for a long time.

The sacrament meeting was also the Primary Program so it was really special to see Pedro get confirmed and then to participate in the Primary Program. I was so proud and I am grateful that I was able to be a small part of this process for Pedro. The Primary Program was awesome to say the least. Those little ones had the chapel packed with all of the grandparents and teachers and friends they had invited. And at one point I am pretty sure half of the congregation was in tears while they sang "Families Can be Together Forever." All I know is the future of the Church is in good hands with all of these powerful spirits.

My birthday was good! We had cupcakes and that was basically it, but it was fun. haha Celebrating a Birthday on a mission is a weird thing, but it was also a "once in a lifetime" thing, so I was grateful for the experience.

It has started to get super super cold and has started to snow a bit. An area just an hour from here got 2 1/2 feet of snow this weekend. We only saw an inch. But with that inch the roads were super bad. The morning of the baptism someone took out one of the bushes in front of the church. Fortunately everyone was safe.... except for the bush. :)

This week we get to celebrate American Thanksgiving and I am pumped for that. There are SO many Americans in this ward and they are all getting together and they invited us over for dinner. My hope is that Brother Mitchell makes his sweet potatoes again like he did for Canadian Thanksgiving. haha

Time is still flying by so fast. This is now week 4 of this transfer. So that means I am halfway through transfer #7 of  #12... I am practically out of here when you look at it like that, and considering it will be December when I email again just really blows my mind!!

Things are going just great here! Still learning so much every single day! I hope everyone has a great week and a wonderful Thanksgiving! :)

Karly Palooza :)

Well..... Karly Palooza (or Sister Prescott Palooza as I had to refer to it this week) was.... less than spectacular. haha  Don't get me wrong, it was a good week... but we really did nothing too out of the ordinary, and I don't even have any exciting pictures to post soooooooooo I am kind of a failure. (actually Karly was able to get some pics when her zone met together at the church - see pics below) It was a good week though! And now I just have something to look forward to next year... making it the best Karly Palooza to ever be paloozed!

Hermana Sandall got me a HappyBirthday necklace and pin that says birthday girl...She is wearing one of those things catchers wear when they play baseball.. haha we found it in the gym

Elder Washburn and Elder So'o got me stickers and candy!
And they are making me a cake for my birthday. They are the best!

The Zone on Karly Palooza P-day 

So I have another cool service story this week that kind of goes along with the story from last week. Saturday morning we went to drop by someone that we had met the other day. They were not home and so I decided that we should walk down a different road that we hadn't been on before. We talked to a man who has family members in St. George who are members and then we kept walking and down the street and I saw a woman raking her leaves. So.... we went to this lady and asked her if we could help her and her face lit up and she said, "would you really help me? that would be so nice." So... we grabbed some rakes and went to town. After we had raked for about 15 minutes she stopped and looked at us with tears in her eyes and said, "I am going to tell my son that two angels were sent to me." And then she told us that her son was supposed to help her but that he threw out his back and that he had all of these bad things happening. She knew that she shouldn't have gone out to rake the leaves herself, but she figured she would try and that is when we showed up. She was so so grateful for our help. And I was so so grateful that I could be an answer to someone's prayers. The whole time I was just thinking about how God really is so aware of us. This woman needed some help and luckily we were able to go and help her. It was really cool... and people are loving to call us Angels these days. :)

We spoke in sacrament yesterday and it went really really well. I seriously LOVE LOVE speaking in Sacrament. This is the first time that I got up there with just a list of bullet points and not everything written word for word and it went a lot better than I thought. 

I wish I had more time and energy to write more this week but..... We are going to go and play volleyball (see pics above) in honor of my birthday so I don't have much time!

I hope everyone had a great week and I will write more and try to have more pictures next week!

#theycallmesister

*saw this on a journal (minus the hashtagging) and laughed out loud... so... I will use this phrase now. :)

So this is the card that Shawn (my brother) sent me for my birthday. The day I got it I wore my Duck Dynasty shirt to bed that night in honor of the card.  Anyway... we were doing follow up calls with Elder So'o and I was telling him how I had gotten a Duck Dynasty card from my brother and I also told him about my Duck Dynasty shirt... He said that he had seen the show enough to know what it was about and then just laughed and said, "I find it odd that someone would bring a Duck Dynasty shirt on their mission" and I just said, "Oh I didn't bring this on my mission, I bought it after I got here."
To which he laughed again and said, "I think that is even worse." haha
So.... let's give it up for being red neck. #proudtobe :)

You two must be angels !

And..... there goes another week here in mission land! And good news everyone... KARLY PALOOZA begins today!! For those of you who are not aware of "Karly Palooza" I will fill you in on the details... Basically it is a week long celebration up until my birthday on the 19th. So everyday I will try to do something fun to celebrate and I invite everyone else to do fun things for this week and you can go ahead and use the excuse that it is Karly Palooza! So go ahead... go crazy! :)

 Me, Elder Ikeda, Elder Healey and Sister Colvin before the Elders moved last Monday. The Elder in front is Elder So'o... he is my new district leader. I will have to get a better picture of him at some point. haha

This week we had a pretty cool service opportunity. We were walking to an appointment and were just planning on doing some finding up until the time of the appointment. As we were walking I looked across the street and I see this old couple and in front of them a HUGE pile of chopped wood that had just been dumped in their drive way... We kept walking for a bit but then I just felt that we REALLY needed to go help them. We went over and started talking to them and asked if we could help. They were a little hesitant but eventually let us.

They were the sweetest couple. Both of them are 90 years old and they were just planning on moving that big pile of wood!   I was not about to let that happen so we stayed and helped them for an hour. The cute lady after a few minutes said, "You two must be angels!" I just had to laugh... we are not exactly angels, but we are probably the closest thing to that at this point as missionaries. The woman also said that she has seen Elders from our church but they never offered to help with anything. I told her that is probably because she didn't have a huge pile of wood in the middle of her driveway. :) She insisted on feeding us lunch, but we had to leave so we will be going back soon to take her up on that. She said that they always enjoyed talking with the missionaries so hopefully we will have the opportunity to share the Gospel with them. It is amazing how many incredible people are out there and yet we miss their stories because we don't talk to them. I love being a missionary and being able to walk up to anyone and find out about them!

Elder Kopischke

This weekend was Stake Conference in the Kitchener Stake and they reorganized the Stake Presidency so we had a General Authority here which was sweet. Elder Kopischke of the Seventy came and led a discussion on Saturday night and then spoke Sunday. He is a really good speaker. Sunday he talked about "Remembering" in honor of Remembrance Day that was Monday. He basically said that if we are not remembering to live the Gospel or remembering our testimonies then we are forgetting so we always have to remember. Before the session on Sunday he was walking around shaking peoples hands and we just so happened to be sitting in a place to get a handshake and he said, "Missionaries!" So... I am practically famous? haha I have met SO many great people here in this mission life. That is now 2 General Authorities... that is 2 more than I ever met while living in Utah. haha

Well it snowed and actually stuck so that is lovely. It is also freezing. We are also getting a lot more dinner appointments lately... I seem to have that effect on people. :) That, or I am the biggest mooch in town. haha either way.. I love dinner appointments. :)

Well I think that is all for this week! Oh, well except for tomorrow it will be my 9 month mark... 9 whole months since I left home!!!!! This also marks the week that I got home from Ecuador and started my mission papers so... that is crazy. Time really is flying faster and faster everyday! Seems crazy to look back on where I was a year ago and where I am now and all of the amazing experiences that I have had in between. It will be fun to see what can happen in the next year!!!

Have a great week!

 I got to see Sister P at Zone Training and then at stake conference

 Our oven was broken so we told the landlord and they just came and took the old one out to the street and gave us a different one

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!

Where did October go?

Well.... where did October go? I cannot believe it is the end of the month.

This week was the ward Halloween party and it was a lot of fun. They had so many cute games and activities for the kids and there were so many great costumes.

Halloween Party

Spider Race

This is brother Mitchell... and.... I think all the boys need to go to Walmart and get this get up and dress like this on Halloween. I WOULD DIE. haha So really they should do it. They wouldn't even need to wear the fake beards. just borrow some cammo from someone. haha

The same day as the Halloween party we had what they call a "mini mission" So for that Saturday morning Sister Colvin and I had two youth with us and we were able to take them out and do some missionary work.

Mini Mission 

The girls that were with us were so cute and they were more brave about sharing the Gospel than I was even in the first 6 weeks of my mission. I was really so impressed by them. We visited a few different members and tried to have as many appointments as possible because it was snowing that morning. It was a good day for me because it helped me to remember why I am here doing missionary work. Sometimes all days just seem to be the same and so we can get in a rut, but this bit of a change really helped me to see what a special spirit there is that surrounds us when we are doing missionary work.

On Sunday was our big singing moment in Sacrament. I was nervous but we had practiced a ton and it turned out really well. Sister Colvin has helped me practice with my singing and I was actually pretty confident to get up there. We sang the song "Army of Helaman" and I think the ward liked it. So that was a highlight of my week! Singing in sacrament meeting was something that I wanted to do while I was on my mission so I can now cross that off the bucket list. :)

It got cold this week and I had to bust out my winter coat. Not really looking forward to the freezing cold weather and it getting dark early, but I guess that is all part of the process. It couldn't be summer  forever! :)

I should have never taken the advice of not wearing the fur thing last winter because... this has been saving the day! haha

This week marks Week 6 of this transfer which is the last week. Transfer calls will come on Sunday and I don't have any sort of feeling as to what will happen. So with that I will be ending my 6th transfer which means half way! So... this Sunday will be "hump day" (If i come home in 12 transfers, which would be in time to make it back to school, which is what I am planning on.) So... feel free to celebrate hump day with me!

Sewing at Sue's

Turns out I miss sewing!

 Will have to get back into that when I get home

This is funny because Ephraim is the tribe that I am from...
haha Mormon jokes!

Cooler weather and pretty pictures

Well I can honestly say not much has happened in the 4 days since I last wrote. Other than it felt like a lot longer than 4 days so... that is weird. Oh well.. :)

ummm.... it got cold this week! We left our apartment one morning and it was not raining and not too cold and then 5 minutes later it was pouring and freezing! We were not prepared for the weather so we froze for a good 4 hours... man I love never having a car. :) haha 

We still have no one to teach... lame. We are working on it and it is going to work out soon I hope!

Here are some pictures! Hopefully the next 7 days will be a little more exciting than the last 4! 

Hannah Boettinger and I.. she leaves on a mission
 for Albania next week

We did a little photo shoot yesterday...
the lighting was too good to pass up!

My jumping skills and Sister Colvin's picture skills
combined for this !

Canadian Thanksgiving, Victoria Park, Fun times on the Bus

Well I made it a week and a half without a pday! :) Didn't think I could do it, but here I am!

Sister Colvin and Karly

Canadian Thanksgiving was great! We planned our day out because we knew not a lot of people would be around.. We did some service for a single sister in the ward, had pie with a recent convert, and then later in the evening we had dinner with a family that is actually from Utah! Now, for some more details about the day.... 

We took the bus to go have pie and on the way we ran into a man that we had contacted the other day. Now we found out this man is from Germany and he was in Kitchener for Oktoberfest. (From what I understand Oktoberfest must happen in Germany and then they do it here too because this city actually used to be called Berlin. From what I saw of Oktoberfest it basically just looks like 2 weekends that give everyone an excuse to drink excessively and wear German hats.... oh well.. who am I to judge? haha)

So back to this man... he sat near us on the bus and he was looking at us and he saw me yawn and he goes, "you must be tired, you look tired" (this was not the last time that I would be told I looked tired that day... looks like I need to get more sleep) And then he for some reason pulls out his camera and takes a picture of me! I was just like, "uh....???" Anyway... he says that he takes a lot of pictures so he doesn't forget what he did that day. haha And then he told us that he would be heading back to Germany the next day... So.... now aren't we all grateful that a picture of me is with some random man in Hindenburg, Germany?
 

 

Pie was next and it was so wonderful!

Then for dinner we ate with some members that are from Utah. They live out in the Country in this HUGE farm house that they rent. It is so pretty. Dinner was really good and I felt like I was home! We had ham (which is my absolute favorite) and THE best sweet potatoes I have had in my entire life. I am going to need to get the recipe. It was fun to have Thanksgiving at a different time of the year and I am grateful we had such wonderful people to spend the day with.

Oh and here is just another random, pointless story.... The other day we rode the bus down to the terminal so that we could meet the Elders and get the car. They were a little behind schedule so we sat in Victoria Park for a bit waiting for them.

Victoria Park

More in Victoria Park

 And as we waited this man came up to us.. he said his name is Hector and that he is from Honduras and he even said that he was a member of the church. Anyway... I think Hector must have been taking advantage of the drinking part of Oktoberfest, because he then proceeded to tell us how beautiful we were and at one point he told me I was, and I quote, "one hot pepper." Needless to say we were outta there real quickly. I am telling you... never a dull moment around here. Especially when you are on the buses. haha 

On a more serious note... we are still working on finding people to teach. It can be hard.. but we just keep working at it, the blessings will come eventually!  Oh and here is a video that we shared with a member this week and I LOVED it so I wanted to share it with all of you! 

I wish I could think of more things that happened this week, but... I am at a loss. I cannot believe that it is already week 4 of this transfer. It is going to be over so so soon. It is starting to get colder, which is ok, but can kind of be a pain when we are walking around in it for hours. 

Anyway.. I think that is about it for today. Now that it is already Wednesday it will seem like Monday is going to come around SO fast.

OH... I almost forget to mention that the Bishopric asked us to sing in sacrament meeting next week... I guess no one told them that I don't sing... oh well... guess I will be able to check singing in sacrament meeting off my bucket list! I will let you all know how it goes. :)

This is the last covered bridge left in Ontario. It is called the "Kissing Bridge" it is out in Mennonite Country. (that is something interesting about this area.. there are a lot of Mennonites) 

Loving Tim Horton's

General Conference - All good !

Elder Healey, Elder Ikeda, Hermana Sandall, Hermana Reid, Me and Sister Colvin
Meeting to watch General Conference

Well another week has come to pass here in the Canada, Toronto Mission! I hope everyone watched conference! And well if you didn't... thank goodness for repentance and the internet ;)  A few of my favorites that I would suggest watching. Edward Dube's talk from the Saturday morning session. Elder Holland's from the Saturday afternoon session and President Eyring threw down in the Sunday Morning Session. All good, but those were some of my favorites. I wish I had my notes so I could share with all of you some insights but... oh well. I am just thankful that we have a Prophet of God on the earth today as well as his Apostles and other great leaders in the church who are so inspired and speak to us about the things that we need to hear. The Spirit was continually testifying to me throughout the whole conference that this is all SO true. We are lead by a Prophet of God and this is Christ's Restored Church... it's pretty incredible, eh? We better tell everyone. ;) 

Elder Ikeda and Elder Healey

Saturday morning the Norells, from my last area, came and took Sister Colvin and I out to brunch and then watched the Saturday morning session with us. I just love them! Brother Norell had to be in Kitchener that morning anyway, so it worked out perfectly. Barb brought me veggie straws from Costco, and it was just so good to see them. Made my day! :) It is crazy how you can meet people and then 4 months later they feel like family. I can't imagine having never met some of the people that I have met so far on my mission.

Sunglasses that Sister Norell gave me
I LOVE THEM !

So.... other than conference, nothing too exciting happened. The leaves are starting to change so you better believe that we are always on the hunt for leaves that we can press. They have become my favorite book marks and little treasures to send to people.

I went on an exchange this week with a Sister that is from Idaho but went to Utah State as well. Turns out she lived in the apartment building next to me and she knows people that I met my freshman year. The world is seriously so small... especially in mission life. It seems like I am always running into people who know people I know.

Well I think that is about it for this week. At the bottom of the post are some random pictures of my apartment.  I will have to be better about taking pictures this week. We are going to be on the finding grind this week. A lot of our investigators, we have had to drop, so looking forward to getting creative with that.

Also... let's talk about how P-day isn't until Wednesday next week.... talk about forever. Thanks for nothing Canadian Thanksgiving.... just kidding. :) My full intentions are to celebrate two Thanksgivings this year.... and then every year for the rest of my life... ;) Now if only we could find someone to feed us.. haha

Have a great week and a half, and have a happy Canadian Thanksgiving all you Canadians out there! Heck... if you are American you might as well celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving Monday on my behalf! :)

p.s. Sunday is my 8th month mark!

Bottom bunk  #wazzup

My desk

The living room we never go into
(above and below)

Our kitchen