Week 22: It's Easy to be Happy in Warm Weather

"Fair weather cometh out of the north: with God is terrible majesty." Job 37:22

Hi everybody : ) Happy late Pi day!

We've been having a lovely time in North Dakota. No matter how slow an hour might have been, at least the weather wasn't trying to kill us. : D During this week we shed our boots AND coats, and for a couple days even went out without a cardigan. I'd say that is a successful week.

We had a really cool lesson with Julius, a new investigator, on Tuesday. (And yesterday we had our second.) He has a lot of questions and doesn't really like to go in order out of the pamphlet, but it's super fun to teach him. He really wants to know the restored Gospel, so we've been focusing on the promise in Moroni 10:3-5, where we learn how through prayer and the Holy Ghost the truth of all things can be made known to each of us individually. I'm really excited for him! We also talked to Brother M about the difference between the power and the gift of the Holy Ghost, which was super interesting to study. Before baptism, everyone can feel the influence/power of the Holy Ghost as they are guided to follow and know the Savior. After baptism, as shown in Moroni 2/D&C 33:11-15, we have the opportunity to receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost, where He can now be with us at all times.

Sister C, the Relief Society President, came with us to see Kim and Melissa Wednesday morning. We listened to President Uchtdorf's talk "Living the Gospel Joyful" with Kim, after which she bore powerful testimony of the blessings that come not because we followed some "strict paternalistic requirements" but because we opened our lives to receiving the natural consequences of righteous actions.

District Meeting was great as well--Elder Z gave us 2 questions to think about. First, how has the Atonement of Jesus Christ affected you on your mission? And second, how can you help others experience these same blessings? I thought about these two questions for the rest of the week, and yesterday in my studies it all came together. Keep in mind that I've been thinking a lot about why it's so hard to go up to complete strangers and share a message of the Gospel--even with practice, it often feels so insincere. Now, consider the promise given in Preach My Gospel that as we understand from study and experience the power of the Atonement, our desire to share that knowledge will increase and our courage will be strengthened. Add one more thought into the stew--the Church is putting out another initiative, much like the Christmas #HeIsTheGift message, for us to use starting this Easter season. It is entitled Because He Lives, and it was constructed to give us opportunities to help others discover, experience, and share the blessings that come because Jesus Christ lives today.

So! I was reading a training paper for the #BecauseHeLives initiative and I ran into a line that says something like this: "The effectiveness of your use of this initiative will be dependent on your own experience with the Atonement of Jesus Christ. How can you use this initiative to strengthen yourself?" I know that I've been strengthened and changed and comforted and forgiven through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I know that because He lives, there is hope for me and for everyone else to return to live with our Heavenly Father. And I'm excited to share this knowledge with everyone--and the more I study and experience the power of the Atonement, the more I will understand the role it plays in EVERYONE's life, thus helping my brain realize that this message connects with everyone I come in contact with.

I hope that makes sense. : )

After our closing prayer for Nathan's lesson Wednesday night, McKenziee insisted we pray again. And she said it (with Sister N's help). It was pretty neat. : )

We went to Carrington after planning and helping at Goodwill on Thursday. After dinner we'd planned on visiting Doug & Dottie, but when they weren't home we decided--as suggested by Sister G--to take the half-hour out to Bowdon to visit Sister S. All we knew was that she was a cute older sister who would come to church if at all possible, but she takes care of her daughter. So at 8:15 p.m. we knocked on their front door, hoping they didn't think we were crazy people and feeling sorry since they probably did. But Sister S recognized us as missionaries and, like most North Dakotans, had us go around to the back door. I'm so glad we visited them! Sister S ended up being an amazingly-stalwart sister who's been active all her life. She grew up in Utah, introduced her husband to the Gospel, and now reads scriptures daily, holds a temple recommend, and takes care of her sick daughter Kim. She also has a lot of sadness with her husband and daughter having left this life before her. We decided that we'd come back the next morning, and then we shared my favorite Atonement/strength scripture in Mosiah 24:11-15. It was great to help her remember that although our situation may stay the same, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ (BecauseHeLives...:D) we can be strengthened to the point that our burdens may seem easy and life is joyful again. Also, Sister S had just broken her left arm, so she let us sign her cast and I drew a sunflower.

On our drive back from Carrington (we're allowed to listen to music on long drives :) ) it was literally 72 degrees. I think this will be a record-breaking Spring for North Dakota.

Saturday was pi day (3.1415...), which I celebrate, by tradition, every year with pie. March 14th also happened to be Jamestown's annual Run o' The Green party, which ended up being party of drunk young adults excused by funds going to charity and ridiculous film going on the news. It wasn't a super effective time to go tracting, so we made 2 pies with Sister V--a pecan and a cherry. Fun fact, I've never actually had cherry pie before. I don't know why--it's pretty good stuff.

We made lemon meringue pie for potluck with the leftover crust from Pi day. Because the recipe was on a lemon jello packet, we thought it would be super easy. Ba ha ha. I forgot about the meringue part of lemon meringue, meaning the 40 minutes of 3 hand-whipped egg whites that barely formed relatively-stiff peaks. I am now more grateful than ever for the invention of handmixers. Although I suppose now I can put that I'm able to hand-whip meringues on my resumes? And it miraculously came out lookin' pretty nice.

* * * * *

In lieu of showing the BecauseHeLives video with at our lessons (since it doesn't come out until March 28th), we've been showing the amazing clip from last Easter season. It gives a great perspective on what is possible because of Jesus Christ.

​https://www.lds.org/youth/video/because-of-him?lang=eng

I'd encourage you all to watch it, as well as to consider a friend you could invite to watch a session of General Conference with you, where they can hear modern-day Prophets and Apostles teach more about and testify of the Savior. The Lord is waiting to help us gather the fish of the sea (change the lives of our friends), it's just up to us to first cast the net (invite).

Love you! -Sister F

Week 21: And the Heavens Rejoiced

"Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice: and let men say among the nations, the Lord reigneth." 1 Chronicles 16:3

Hello everybody!

It's been another awesome week. : D Tuesday was a pretty good day. It was cold, but that's normal, so we just wore our two coats and boots and layered up well. That morning I studied the Christlike Attribute of Obedience and went on to thoroughly chastise myself for allowing us to go to lessons without other adult ladies there (it's such a bother and sometimes people can't be there and the work has to go on! -but these are all excuses and not good). So for our lesson with Brother M we made sure to try really hard to bring a member, and the only person who was able to come was Sister V who, bless her heart, is still very sick. When we finally made it to the lesson those two just chatted away for the majority of the time, which was a little stressful since we still had several lessons to teach Brother M and we couldn't even get through this one. And we left a half-hour late, so we were late to the next appointment. But, good learning experience. And also now those two are better friends which is super good long-term. So there's good in every situation.

The appointment we were late to was dinner and a discussion with Liz, the investigator who took us out to lunch a couple weeks ago. But she's very chill and fortunately wasn't upset us our tardiness--in fact, she treated us to Italian sodas, which were super fun to make and I wish I'd taken a picture. Her sloppy joes were also really good, especially for someone who apparently doesn't love to cook. After dinner we sat in her earth-toned comfortable living room and shared our list of "Why Liz Should Be Mormon," which was also super fun to compile that morning. We talked about everything from modern revelation to eternal families, and were able to teach her more about angels (she asked us about that last time). If you want some food for thought, go look up Seraphim/Cherubim in the Bible Dictionary. It was also a good testimony-builder for me about the role music plays in our life, because the whole time she had soft coffee-shop music playing. In pre-mission life I loved having constant music, but now as a missionary I recognized that it was so much harder to listen to the Spirit with that distraction. I'm grateful for the experience, though. Just hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to fix that for next time.

Wednesday morning we finally got to meet with Kim again--she's been busy tending Dad and grandkids all week. She had a lot to talk about, and we had a good discussion on Standing As Witnesses, Elder Oak's article in this month's Ensign. Mark P's family had us over for dinner again, and I learned that if you take normal spaghetti sauce and supplement it with a can of mandarin oranges, it's super amazing. We shared our Restoration Jenga lesson, and though the boys were a little distracted by the blocks, I think Liz was able to listen, so it was a successful day.

All week we had growing anxiety about Brother M's baptism, since the list of preparations was not getting shorter, but the time was shrinking fast. We also weren't sure if he still wanted to be baptized.... needless to say, it was relieving and a little scary to finally be able to sit down with him and discuss the plan. Sister N held her breath when I asked if he was still planning on being baptized. Of course, he said yes, as long as we were there to guide him. (Perfect!) So relieving. We then went on to teach him about Tithing, Fasting, and set up his baptismal service. After the lesson we fortunately had a few hours so we could contact all the people for talks and playing and refreshments and all that good stuff. All that Brother M needed at this point was to have his interview, and then we could teach a few more Laws & Ordinances, and he'd be good to go.

Friday morning we drove to Fargo for Zone Training Meeting, which is worthy of another email itself (see helives.mormon.org for more juicy details : ) ), and then Sister N and I split for a 24-hour companion exchange. I got to stay in Jamestown with Sister L, and Sister N went with Sister A to Fargo. I'd actually really wanted to get to know Sister L better, and I had been sensing that Sister N was missing the missionary leadership scene, so that was very excellently-scheduled. Sister L ended up feeling pretty tired (Sister Training Leader's companion), so it ended up being fortunate that we had a slow evening. Brother M had his interview with Elder Z at the church which, by the way, was a record 15 minutes. I'm pretty sure they're not usually that short. But they both came out looking like they'd felt the Spirit powerfully, i.e. watery eyes, so I think it went pretty well. I had a neat experience learning about Sister L' life experiences--she took the picture on her camera, so hopefully I can send it next week. She showed me how to play Book of Mormon Baseball during dinner and I am so excited to master it!

Saturday morning Sister L woke up with a bad sore throat, so I ended up exercising on my own while she rested. It was cool to see a bit of personal progression in myself--when I was a brand-new missionary, whenever my companion felt sick and decided to sleep in I really had to struggle about whether I was going to follow their example. But his morning it wasn't even a thought. I just made my bed, prayed, and got going. Hooray for progression! It may be slow, but I believe the pace is perfect. Even though Sister L didn't feel well, we were still able to visit Brother M, Melissa, and B. Before she left I made sure to give her the grand tour of the Jamestown Tree House. I even went so far as to take a picture for myself. : )

Someone in Jamestown has really good taste in treehouses.

Sister N and the Zone Leadership crew came back to Jamestown at about 5:00, and we had a nice exchange interview. I did a double take when Sister A sat me down and told me to make sure I'm prepared to train next transfer. I was so distracted thinking about that, about responsibility and preparedness and how unready I felt, that I didn't even write in my journal! But we still had a lesson with Brother M and Brother B helped us teach him about the Priesthood and he is ready spaghetti.

And then it was Sunday! We were at the church by 7:45 so we could start filling the font. The rest of the morning was spent practicing for the musical number we would perform, and then we had Ward Council and church and his baptism. Brother M brought his sister E. : ) It was definitely a powerful time for him, and for the rest of the Ward. He has wanted to be baptized for so many years--he has such a strong desire to follow Christ! Sister N was in tears during the ordinance--the Spirit was very powerful in the room. And Brother M just glowed afterwards! He shared his testimony on how he's been guided by the Spirit to this point, and how excited he is to help build up the kingdom of God. We haven't even taught him about missionary work yet! :D I got just a glimpse of the rock he will be as he grows in understanding and experience--he is going to do a lot of good work for Heavenly Father. I'm so glad we knocked on his door.

"And the heavens rejoiced." Mother Nature is celebrating Brother Massalay's baptism. :  )

I finally have my Leadership Binder! I've been waiting so long for this! Such blessings!

*  *  *  *  *

I mentioned a little earlier about how anxious I was after talking with Sister A about training soon. I really was very distracted--I almost didn't pay attention to Brother M's baptism. However, I had faith that Heavenly Father would help me work it out, so I've been patient, and this morning in my studies I was able to form a battle plan for preparation, and now I feel much better. Here's one thought I found:

"This morning I read an article about shining the Light of Christ. It asked how we can shine the light of Christ, and I've been thinking about that all morning. 3 Nephi 18:24 reads, 'Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold, I am the light which ye shall hold up--that which ye have seen me do.' Also, consider the words from hymn 219 'Because I have been blessed by thy great love, dear Lord, I'll share thy love again, according to thy word. I shall give love to those in need; I'll show that love by word and deed: Thus shall my thanks be thanks in deed.' "

As disciples of Christ, our role of sharing the Gospel is perhaps the highest level of sharing the light of Christ that we can ever reach in this life. The more I strengthen my understanding of the importance of sharing the Gospel, the more I am able to confidently move forward, even when large tasks loom ahead. I know, as Nephi knew, that "the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them."

It may not be on the mountain top or even in the mission field, but we each have our call to serve. It can be overwhelming and scary, but I promise that as we approach the Lord in prayer, as we prepare a plan to move forward, and as we do our best to align our will with the will of God, we will accomplish the tasks we need.

I love and pray for you! Thanks for the love and prayers I receive daily.

Love,

Sister F

Week 20: I Learn About Love & The Spirit

"Wherefore, I the Lord ask you this question—unto what were ye ordained? 14 To preach my gospel by the Spirit, even the Comforter which was sent forth to teach the truth." D&C 50:13-14

Hello everybody!

I hope you're excited to learn about my week--I'm definitely excited to share some of the things I've done and learned. : ) 

I'd first love to update you on that musical fireside I mentioned a few weeks ago. We're still planning on doing one, but as we're in week 3 of this transfer we decided to scale it down to the just within our Ward, although since it's meant to be a tool for finding we're still going to focus on inviting people of other faiths. It will be based off of The Character of Christ talk by Elder Bednar, and we're hoping to use some of the new Bible videos from lds.org to teach about the principles of Christ's character. So that will be fun.

Tuesday was a pretty great day. Britt was out of town, and since she's been really busy and has an infant and a special-needs young girl she doesn't get much time to clean. So while she was gone, her mom Kim asked us to work on a surprise for Britt by helping her clean Britt's house. Asking a missionary if they can help you with anything, by the way, is pretty much the best gift you can give them. I enjoyed scrubbing the bathroom with Kim's awesome lavender-scented Mr. Clean solution--for some unknown but appreciated reason, I've grown to love cleaning, especially scrubbing, bathrooms while serving in Jamestown. In a way it's like repentance. You can start out with something really dirty, but if you take the time to scrub diligently it can all be washed away. And if you clean on a regular basis, you can keep the standard of cleanliness higher each time as you slowly work on mini deep-cleaning projects. Well, I hope that makes sense. Anyway, it was very fun. I should've taken pictures....

Sister V was feeling down in the dumps, so we decided to spend our dinner hour at her house. She normally makes us fun meals, but this time we brought our spaghetti squash and sauce materials and had a pretty awesome pasta-free pasta dish. I worked really hard to get the sauce to taste like Mom's, and it got pretty close. I was proud of myself. :D

I really wanted a picture of the ice that builds up on the inside of our windows. It hasn't been cold enough to work lately, so this is a pretty sad example. I promise it's real, though, and pretty cool (pun intended).

Wednesday can be summed up pretty well by the phrase "Meet the Mormons was in Jamestown." Our youth's leaders had organized this week's mutual activity to be showing Meet the Mormons in the chapel, and they allowed us to invite as many people as we could. That morning Sister N and I made some cool flyers and then spent the day passing them out to investigators and less-active members in our area. In the end, no one we'd invited came, but at least they knew about the movie. And Liz, a one-day potential investigator (she took us out to lunch last week if I wrote about that), although she was busy that night, wants to check out the movie when it comes up on Netflix, so progress was made!

When we watched the movie I had expected myself to cry and Sister N to remain stoic, but it actually ended up the other way around. Funny enough, Sister N says she's never cried more in her life than in Jamestown. But I still think she's pretty cool. : )

That night we had an awesome lesson with Nathan. His Mom Kim has been busy tending his niece, so we ended up doing our lesson in the Young Women's room. Brother B stayed after the movie, and we ended up having an awesome discussion about the first half of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He asked us about what else he could do to prepare for a mission, and I just have to throw in a plug for him and say that he is going to be such an amazing missionary. My word, if I'd had missionaries teaching me right out of Preach My Gospel before my mission, I'd be so much more prepared!

We had an interesting experience while serving in the local Goodwill thrift store. Sister N and I were working on sorting and hanging clothes in the back room when another volunteer walked in. He was an older gentleman who was pretty sure that "Mormons aren't Latter-day Saints," and also that we were definitely Jehovah's Witnesses. It is times like these that I have to remember that trying to force someone to see something my way is just not going to work. After all, in 3 Nephi 11 the Savior taught us, "For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me . . . Behold, this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of men with anger, one against another; but this is my doctrine, that such things should be done away." So we valiantly and successfully resisted the urge to prove ourselves right, and just waited it out. But I'm very glad not everyone is so opinionated, or it would be pretty hard to get any missionary work done here.

That night we'd planned on doing FHE at Melissa's home with the Z family. They ended up having to cancel an hour before the lesson, but Sister N and I still wanted to help Melissa with teaching her family, so we came up with a quick lesson. We began by teaching about miracles, and how they're dependent on our faith. Then we read about "Jesus Raises Jairus' Daughter From The Dead" out of the children's New Testament story book, after which we took turns being different characters and acting the story out. The younger kids had a blast learning about miracles, which helped the too-cool older kids have the desire to come back and participate. : ) If I learn anything on my mission, at least I'll know how to throw together Family Home Evening.

Friday morning we went back to Melissa's home with Sister M to discuss prophets. We were talking about the importance of following the prophet today, and Sister M shared a neat experience--when President Hinckley had announced the standard that women are to only have one pair of earrings, she was very upset. She had a small hoop at the top of her left ear that she loved, and she would not remove it. She ended up distancing herself for a year because of it. And then that year later she was home for a funeral, and one of her uncles challenged her to try taking out her earring, just for a bit. She thought and thought about it, and took it out, and one week later she met her husband. I didn't explain it as well as she did, but it was a really cool experience for Melissa to hear about. This is why we like to bring members to lessons--they can share personal experiences and explain things to others and build friendships.

That night we had an AWESOME lesson with Cory. We finished the Restoration (Sister N did an excellent job with the First Vision), he felt and recognized the Spirit, and in the end he asked if he could come to church. You know a lesson went well when the investigator commits him or herself to learn more. Anyway, I'm super excited for him. He has a lot of potential.

Sister V (Tricia) had us over for dinner Friday night. We helped make meatballs that had bean sprouts and oatmeal on them. When combined with cabbage and sweet-and-sour sauce on a tortilla, we had a pretty awesome dish.

On Saturday morning we finally had time for Family History Hour, which is moste excellente I've been getting so excited to work on my family history, and having only an hour to research never feels like enough. But here's a cool picture Pop sent me last week--it's my Grandma, her sister and brothers, and her parents.

We also had an awesome experience at Brother M's lesson. I was slightly nervous going in since we were planning on teaching the Law of Chastity, and let's face it, that can become super awkward. But as missionaries we just have to grin and bear it. Imagine our surprise (and chagrin?), then, when M's roommate Amelio decided to sit in. What? The avid Methodist decides to listen to this of all first lessons? But there was no stopping the steamroller--Brother M is being baptized on Sunday so we had to teach it. But guess what? Apparently this is an awesome lesson to help people understand our use of scriptures, because we started out with the 10 Commandments in the Bible, then expounded on CPR (Church, Pray, Read) with 3 Nephi, and concluded with the Law of Chastity, which is a standard most conservative people already agree on. So by the end Sister N and I were chuckling as Brother M and Amelio competed at who could testify most about how the Book of Mormon is another witness of Jesus Christ. You never know, eh? Heavenly Father certainly is the perfect planner.

And then it was Sunday! Sunday is every missionary's favorite day, I think. Combine networking our investigators with Ward members, learning about teaching the gospel, and receiving our own spiritual instruction with the additional blessing of Fast & Testimony meeting and you've made a missionary's heaven. Brother M, Bendu, and even Penny were there. We were so busy it was crazy, but that's how it goes I s'pose.

After church we taught an FHE lesson on the Restoration to a family we'd tracted into earlier this week, and then we taught Kyra about temples and family history (she's preparing to be baptized in June). We were pretty tired after dinner, so Sister N and I took a half-hour nap at 6:30 before heading out to visit Thandi. That morning she'd received terrible news that her brother had been killed, so as soon as she was off work we went over to visit her. I was amazed by her strength of mind--she was determined not to cry, and she ended up laughing and enjoying a conversation as she told us stories about her family in Africa. I'm so glad we were able to be there for her. I know she won't be suddenly better in one day, but I know that I can be there for her on her journey to healing.

During testimony meeting on Sunday there was a theme of the importance of love. Brother Z talked of how "our mission is to learn to love those who don't want love, who reject love. To bring Christ's love to them." Sister D, a nurse in training who worked this week with the parents of an abused infant, learned that she had to "Love them first." We learned from Brother B that the fruits of the Priesthood are peace, joy, and love, that the responsibility of Priesthood holders is to show and share love by stepping up when there's a need.

I tried to keep this principle in mind as we taught Darin and Danielle's family after church. I was so, so scared to teach them. I've never been so nervous to teach someone before--it felt so invasive to enter their home and bring in new knowledge (thanks, adversary). I knew where that fear came from, and yet it was so real. But I've also been focusing on pleading for the Spirit to work within the hearts of the people of Jamestown, and for myself to be able to speak with his power, and let me tell you my prayer was answered. As I shared the First Vision, which is what I was most afraid to do since it feels so controversial, the Spirit poured into the room. Everyone, even the infant, was quiet and listened intently. I've never felt the Spirit so strongly while teaching before. It was amazing and very, very humbling.

This family ended up not requesting a second visit, but I know that they felt the Spirit. I know that they know that I know what we shared is true. And that is my purpose as a missionary--to preach the gospel by the Spirit, to invite them to act, and then to leave the decision up to them.

I hope you've all had a good week of learning.

Week 19: For some reason, Sister Nielson and I only ever have good weeks. This is another one. : ) I'm sure enjoying this.

Hello, hello, hello!

I'm having a hard time bringing myself to begin the email--it can be so long, you know. But I'll do it, just for you. : ) And we had a lot of amazing things happen that I definitely want to remember. So here we go.

Tuesday's search for people to teach led us to T, a woman from Liberia who's here working to raise money. She was baptized a few years ago. This is a blanket she's working on--she loves to quilt and knit, as you can see. I thought it was pretty. : )

Wednesday was so good! That morning we had a normal, calm lesson with Kim , reading His Grace is Sufficient ( https://www.lds.org/search?lang=eng&query=his+grace+is+sufficient+brad+wilcox  - the one from speeches.byu.edu) and sharing some cool thoughts. We left, and were just finishing up lunch preparations when she gave us a call! And guess what! In that fifteen minutes of us driving home and pulling food out of the fridge, she had had an amazing conversation with her husband. After hearing all her good news, I was speechless. We couldn't really say anything back to her--too much good things. I think I laid down on the floor for a few minutes. So that was great. District Meeting was right after that, and I was super distracted for a few minutes just because of the good news we'd heard, but the new missionaries were here and Elder Z had prepared an awesome training, so I was able to focus again. Still floating on cloud 9, though. 

After district meeting we had a lesson with Brother M and his cousin S about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was good to have another opportunity to explain the importance of having the Priesthood authority to baptize (Matthew 16:19). And it was also our first lesson with S, and he's so excited to live the Gospel that he wants to be baptized too! But we thought it would be good for him to know about the Restoration before we find a day. He'll get there though. It was a good lesson. : ) And Brother M showed us pictures of the humanitarian work he's done in Liberia, and Sister N was so excited! (It is her dream to go to Africa and build schools and such.) And he actually said that next time he goes, she can come if she'd like. So everyone was super happy.

The youth had mutual that evening, and they invited us to do a missionary question-and-answer panel. It was really fun to answer questions they had about the Why's, What's, and How's of missionary work. I cried, of course, when I talked about why I decided to come serve. ;) It was also strange and cool to notice that I wasn't nervous to sit in front of a group of my peers and answer random questions--it was actually really fun! So apparently my mission is helping me develop useful skills.

We had just gotten home that night for our daily planning session when we got this text: "Will you girls be here in April? getting baptized in April." Kim is getting baptized! They have a date! I cannot get transferred! Oh my wordy! is what was going through our heads. We ended up starting our planning 20 minutes late, just because we could not get over our giddiness. And let this be a lesson to us all in the importance of small acts, because if Nathan's grandpa hadn't brought him to church in November, we wouldn't have thought to start teaching him, which was what led us to Kim since we had to ask for her permission. Pretty neat, eh? The Lord truly works through small and simple things.

Thursday morning we helped Brother Mar move his furniture to his new home--he'd just moved in to Jamestown. And apparently his niece Pen, whose home he moved into, is not a member, and the Sisters used to teach her! When the missionaries moved to Oakes a few of their investigators slipped through the cracks, Pen being one of them. But this work is the Lord's work, and he made sure we found her again. So we'll be teaching her now. : )  A cool lady named Liz took us out to lunch at the local coffee shop. She's very up to date in fashion, food, and decorating, and thinks we're "very interesting"--she's super curious! We met her while inviting people to the Ward's Christmas breakfast, and we've built up a good relationship since then. It was really fun to talk more about what we do, and next time we meet she wants to show us her list of reasons why she shouldn't be Mormon, and she wants us to bring her a list of reasons why she should. 

We drove up to Carrington for the evening, and had a nice dinner with the Gs. It's hard to use our time well there in the winter since tracting isn't as effective, but we were able to meet with Doug and Dottie. They're super talkative, and within the hour and a half we were in their living room we'd only gotten through the first two sections of the Restoration. But! We were able to help answer some questions about the temple, and I learned more about ... their lives? Well, it was a good start. : )

The snow is blowing across the road like an Aurora. Snow is weird in North Dakota.

Friday morning's Sister Training Leader call brought news that was so important to my companion that I need to commemorate it here--her first companion, what we call a Mission Mom, is engaged! She was pretty excited and distracted after that, so it was good that we only had a lesson with a 4-year-old before driving back to Jamestown. That night Bishop G and the family drove to Jamestown so they could clean the church. He came with us to another lesson with Brother M, this one about Following the Prophet (went well, by the way), after which he went to the hospital to visit a member while we helped his family clean the church. I was super impressed by 11-, 9-, and 4-year-old children's ability to hunker down and clean the church. Apparently they have a lot of practice. : )

After Bella and I emptied the trashcans I had nothing to do but carry the spray bottle while Sister N and Sam cleaned windows.

Out of time so skipping Saturday...

Sunday was so so good! We had a great time at church--Brother M came with Bendu, Dee came with Angalyn, and Melissa came with her friend Liz. President Anderson interviewed the Elders and Sister N afterwards, and then he and Sister Anderson followed us to our apartment where we had lunch. : ) I can't even express how lucky we were to have President and Sister A over for a meal--that doesn't happen, I don't think. They brought soup and breadsticks and we just sat and talked about the Gospel and about being missionaries and I now most definitely would love to be a mission president's wife some day. They are such an amazing companionship. We shared an insight from The Character of Christ and gave them a copy of the talk for the road, and then they had to go.

We had to move the table for our picture, but it was definitely worth it. Aren't we cute?

President and Sister A will be going home in 5 months. Sister N only has 2 more transfers. With these unpleasant facts floating through the air, I've been thinking a lot about time, and how precious it is. Thomas H. Morris says it pretty well: Brothers and sisters, our life on Earth may be our best chance to prove our mettle. It comes at us one day at a time. What will we do in this life? this year? this day? this moment? "Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have given us this time. They believe in us. They have given us all a chance. They are the real heroes. May we have the wisdom, purpose, and drive to know what we are about and to take advantage of our time here on Earth. May we reflect often and prioritize our time, for time is a precious commodity—a finite resource. In the name of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, amen."

I know that the time we have is a precious resource. It will end some day. I pray that I will accomplish what I need to accomplish with the time I'm given, but I have hope that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ I'll be able to do so.

I hope you all had a great week!