Give Away Give Away :)

CURRENT ADDRESS: Send Sister Hall a letter!!!

2381 Marine Dr, B2
Oakville, ON, Canada
L6L-6R4

Give Away Give Away :)

Another week in the mission flying by!

So some good news all around with our investigators! I'll start in order from longest taught to most recent :)

Sammy: So we went in to see Sammy this week and got to the root of the problem with baptism... He is afraid his family will hate him! awwwwwwweeeee! The poor guy is so old and with his health going down hill, his family is all that he's got. I'm not sure how to help him through this little trial... my thoughts were along the lines of building up his faith and just helping him to realize the blessings that the Lord has in store for him. Sharing is caring so if anyone has any ideas on what we could share with Sammy send some love this way!

Mario: Well Mario has had a really, really, really tough week- just with personal stuff. He is in the process of separating from his wife and things took a turn for the worst this week due to a poor life choice on Marios part. It's interesting though to see how trials can trigger a desire to change/a reflection on your life. In this case this things worked out well for us because Mario is recognizing that his life is changing and that will make it easier for him to live some of the commandments. Despite what he went through this week, he still came out to church on sunday! He wasn't going to, but when I told him that I was going to be speaking and that I needed his support He told me he would be there without a doubt. And he was :) After sacrament meeting he said he needed to head out, but we got to talk to him for a little in the parking lot and he mentioned how the timing of everything in his life has been "weird". Let me tell expand a little for you

1. The day he gets out of the hospital is the first time we meet. I approached him on the street and told him I could help him figure out if there was a life after death. 

2. Wednesday night I call Mario and find out he has had a really tough day. I advise him to read his Book of Mormon to de-stress instead of what he tells me he normally does 

3. I call Mario Friday right after something else big happens (I'm being vague because, well this isnt my stuff to be sharing) 

It was a heart warming experience to see Mario describe how much we have impacted his life, and how us meeting was not just by chance. I can only hope that he remembers this and can see how much God wants to help him right now.

Sam: Oh Sam, how I LOVE her! Teaching her is just such a treat because she actively participates in the discussion AND she agrees with everything we teach (I love it when people agree with me haha). There isnt much more on Sam, she is doing great and came out to a relief society activity on friday. She is super social and made a ton of new friends and said she had an amazing time! Now we just have to get the rest of her kids and husband in on the discussions and we will be golden haha.

Looking down on Gotham City (they filmed batman down there!) 

This week we got to go on exchanges with our sister training leaders! This time I stayed in Oakville with Sister Arksey and Sister Rogers went to Brampton with Sister Tofua. It was yet another spiritually uplifting experience and Sister Arksey and I had maybe a little too much fun ;) Pretty much all the appointments I had made fell through so Arksey and I did a lot of tracting and OYM (talking with people on the street). It was a lot of fun though and I learned a ton from Sister Arksey. She asks for referrals from EVERYONE and I can see why because we ended up getting 3 referrals from random strangers on the street. Score! At the end of the day the person you exchange with gives you something they think you need to work on. Sister Arksey told me she didn't normally invite missionaries to do this, but she felt like it would really help me to "fulfill leadership positions in the mission...". She told me to go that extra step and become even more consecrated, so to do things like not taking the allotted hour breaks for eating, to walk with more purpose etc.... I took her up on her challenge and Sister Rogers and I have seen the blessings! Thursday we only took 20 min to eat and then headed out to OYM and we got 2 appointments and one of them turned into a new investigator! 

I guess the moral of the story is the more you give to God, the more he blesses you

Ok so this is up on a hill and it is a GIANT cross that lights up at night... SO creepy! 

Scripture of the Week: Matthew 10: 39 

"He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." 

Line of the week: Out tracting with Sister Arksey and we meet a 14 year old with a British Accent. I have no idea what I was thinking, but the girl and Sister Arksey had a good laugh and she took a Book of Mormon 

Me: "Oh my goodness I love your accent!"

Girl: "Thanks!!"

Me: "I swear I could close my eyes and I feel like I'm at Hogwarts!"

A Haiku for You:

hope given

my Redeemer lives 

tell the world 

Sister Hall

Elder Murdock and Burgason with our turtle named Wilford 

This is our district! We went on a hike to a waterfall... this is called the Devils Punchbowl...hahah!

Living For The Eternities Not The Moment

Living For The Eternities Not The Moment

Shout OUTs!

Nathan Summers, I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your letter this week haha! Printing out my blog and writing your comments on the things I wrote kept Sister Rogers and I entertained for a good long while and your Haiku was great! 

Thank you Sister Bennett for the pictures you sent of Jill's shower! I felt like I was there and it means a lot that you are so diligent in including me in all the festivities! 

AMBER YOU GOT MARRIED!!!!!!!!!!!! BAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! I got your wedding invitation about a week ago and I pretty much screamed in front of the whole zone haha! I wish I could have been there, but I am SO happy for you 2 :D PLEASE send some pictures when you have time and give let me know how everything was! 

AH! Amber Pedlar!!!! :D

Alright so this week was nothing less of spiritually draining.... IT WAS AWESOME! 

I will start out with our new investigator named Sam. She is a referral from the Choi's in our ward and we had the opportunity this week to teach Sam at the Choi's house. Sam has had a pretty rough life but it is incredible the person she has become. Sister Rogers always says, "Trials can make you bitter or better," and Sam has definitely become better. We sat down with Sam and we started to do a "how to begin teaching" with her, which is essentially getting to know her and we were blown away by her story. Sister Rogers started to tear up and bore her testimony of the love that Heavenly Father has for her and how proud He is of her and the spirit just hit us like a ton of bricks and Sam even started to tear up! We proceeded to teach her about the restoration of Christ's church and holy crow, I dont think I've ever taught someone so prepared! It all made sense to her! After we recited the first vision we asked her how she felt and she paused and said that she has never felt anything like this before. She felt something different when we came into the house and it was similar to this feeling, but it was magnified 10 fold. She described it as someone pouring warm liquid down her throat and having it fill her whole body. We helped her to identify that feeling as the Holy Ghost and told her that was God's way of telling her that what we are telling her is true. She started to tear up a bit again, the spirit was just so strong. At the end of the lesson we invited her to be baptized and she accepted. She also agreed to work towards August 11th as a baptismal date. Unfortunately she wasn't able to come to church this week cause the ride we had gotten for her cancelled last minuet so we will have to push her date back, but that doesn't really matter :) 

We taught Sammy again... and it became clear to us that he just is not ready for baptism. I am at a loss right now as to what we can do to help him... its frustrating, but I know that that is my natural man coming out and I should have much more patients.... I am working on it haha. Sammy always calls us his children, but sometimes I think of it as the other way around and he is actually preparing me for motherhood haha! We have set him with another date for August 25th and will be trying to figure out what we need to change to help him feel the message of the restoration is truth.

Now for Mario :) Sister Ogden and I talked with Mario outside his house about.... 4 weeks ago and he agreed to let us come over and talk with him about life after death. Mario is just about the nicest, selfless guy I know. Him and I have an easy relationship and joke around more than I do with any other investigator I've had, but I never really felt like he was invested in the discussions... or had that desire to change his life. So this week we took Sister Taylor with us to teach Mario the restoration and I guess you could say the purpose of this lesson was a DTR (determine the relationship... haha I'm having flash backs to when Jill and Tyson were dating bahaha). At the start of the lesson I invited him to say the closing prayer and he said next time he would (he has been saying that for the past few lessons -_-) I wasnt going to have any of that so I challenged him to a rock paper scissors battle and if I won he would have to say the prayer. He readily agreed and we began our battle!  

Round 1:
Mario - paper 

Sister Hall- Scissors!

Round 2:

Mario- Scissors

Sister Hall- paper.......

Round 3:

Mario- rock

Sister Hall-............PAPER!!!

AH HA! Who's on the Lords side Who!!! HAza for Israel! 

Anyways I won and we began our lesson. We talked with him about prophets and really got Mario involved in the discussion! We asked him how important he thought prophets were on a scale of 1-10 and he said an 8 and I just looked at him... then he changed his answer to a 10, apparently because of the face I gave him (haha), but then we asked him why he thought it was an 8. He told us and gave the analogy of the telephone game and how messages can get skewed, and we helped him to understand why exactly prophets were important using that analogy! That prophets kept the purity of the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! A few minuets latter something miraculous happened 

Me: "Mario, why was it SO important then for God to call another prophet?!"

Mario: "Well because prophets are the ones with the authority to baptize and without a prophet people couldn't be baptized.. and you need to be baptized to return to live with God..."

I just about passed out but instead may or may not have given Mario a high five across the table...

------>----> fast forward to the end of the lesson ------->------>

We laid it all out on the table. God has called another prophet in these latter days. We asked him what he thought of this, and he said that it would be nice, but how do you know... The member we brought, Sister Taylor, looked at Mario and told him that God loves us just the same as he loves his children in the Bible. So much so that he has again called a prophet... I dont remember what else she said, but I looked over at Mario and he was wiping away tears. I looked at Mario and invited him to follow the example of his Savior and to be baptized and he said yes. He is now working towards a baptismal date of August 18th :) This is what he said to us after we agreed on a date:
"You guys are just so happy. Every time I see you, you have a smile on your face. I want that in my life." 
I have never experienced joy like this before. Seeing people come unto Christ and make changes in their life to find greater happiness and joy.... there is nothing else like it. True happiness really does come from serving our fellow men and following Christ. It reminds me a lot of something Ben said a little while ago in one of his letters about how we have artificially created happiness, but true happiness lies in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We told him there were going to be somethings in his life that he would have to change and do to get his answer and to find that happiness and he acknowledged that. One of the things that we said he would need to do is come to church so we invited him to come and without hesitation he said he would. When Sunday rolled around Sister Rogers and I stood in the parking lot and watched as Mario and his son Scotty drove into the parking lot. We walked them inside and had a great sacrament meeting.

I love you all :) Go out and be happy! 

Line of the Week: So sister Rogers and I are working on our door approach so that we can actually get inside to teach people... Apparently we got pretty good at it cause when two 15 year old girls answered the door and said we could come in and share a message, this is how sister Rogers reacted..

Sister Rogers as soon as she sits down, talking faster than the speed of light and giving NO time for anyone to respond to her questions: "So you dance? Thats awesome I dance too! So do you think God can call a prophet today? Well He has! What can a prophet do for you?" 

The two girls awkwardly sitting next to us on the couch: "............."

Me -> face in palm 

Scripture of the week: 3 Nephi 27: 20

"Now this is the commandment: Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day."

A Haiku for You:

The Lords Time 

Patients Charity

Treasures Found 

Sister Hall

The Good Life

The Good Life   (I had to go find a Starbucks to post this from as my apt still doesn't have internet!!)

ALLLOOOOHHHA! Holly molly is it ever HOT out here! Oh my gosh I feel like melting on the sidewalk each time I go out side!

Before I get into the details of my week, I'd like to give a quick shout out to my wonderful Auntie Wendy for the super thoughtful gift you sent me for my birthday! I would be lying if I said I didn't squeal a little when I opened it ;) Also I want to let Auntie Sue know that I got the peanut butter balls! Thank you SO much for sending them out to me! I was so touched by how thoughtful that was and ate them all within 24 hours... oops hahahaha! I've also been thinking about Clare a lot over these past few weeks. I love her so much and I often look back on the days I spent with her. It is amazing how many lessons I've learned from that little girl :) She truly is a gift from God! I cant wait to spend more time with her when I get home and I'm always praying for her!

This is a brand new family that just moved into the ward. They are the Cunningham's and I LOVE them! We already have them fellowship our favorite part member family the Yips haha :) These are some of there kids Austin and Haley. Mom notice the rocket sticker on Austins shirt :)

As for my week I ended up spending a lot of time on my knees giving thanks to God for all of the blessings he is giving Sister Rogers and I. I didn't include this in my letter home last week, but not only were we dropped by Angela but we were also dropped by Laura and Heather. Needless to say I got a little stressed, but something my trainer Sister Williams told me, stood out in my mind. She said, "When people decide not meet with us anymore, that's just God's way of making room for those who are ready to receive the blessings of the gospel." I latched onto that and started to do some work. These are some of the blessings we have seen this week:

First off is SAMMY: So Sister Rogers and I are in the car heading over to our appointment with Sammy and I look over at sister Rogers and say,"We are going to invite Sammy to be baptized on July 28th tonight."

Sister Rogers stops what she is doing, analyzes my face to see if I'm kidding, decides I'm serious, takes a deep breath and says... "Awesome!" hahaha! Dear sweet Sister Rogers!

Our game plan with Sammy that night was to help him understand baptism. In the past when we have invited Sammy to be baptized he has come up with a host of reasons why not to be baptized. But tonight I just had this really good feeling that everything was going to be alright. So we started out the lesson reviewing what we had talked about before (the great apostasy) and good news, He Still Agrees With Us! haha. Then I opened up the scriptures to 3Nephi 11: 21-26. This is the part in the Book Of Mormon where Christ has come to visit the people in the Americas and is teaching them the proper way to be baptized. We begin to read through the verses and pause at the end of them to discuss each principle that Christ is teaching us. So far so good, Sammy is following along. Sister Rogers then says something profound, she mentions to Sammy that after he is baptized, he himself will be able to hold the priesthood.... BAMMM! We have Sammy's full attention haha. We talk a little more about this and the spirit just fills the room. There is no more debate, just this thirst to learn more. In the end we invited him to be baptized and he said YES! I challenged him to prepare for baptism for the 28th and he was more resistant. It took some talking through, but in the end he agreed to prepare himself for that date. We still have some work to do, Sammy still believes Joseph Smith was a Saint and not a prophet, and getting him out to church has been REALLY difficult, especially with his health problems, but the desire is beginning to grow within him!

The blessings didn't end here either. We have been really working with our members to share the gospel with their friends, but as any missionary can tell you, this isn't always the easiest task. It can be really scary sharing something so special to you with someone you really care about. Worries of offending people, not wanting to change a relationship etc.. always interfere with the actual sharing of the gospel. However this week we received 3 member referrals! 

1. Brother Goodrich shared the gospel with his co-worker Monica who then expressed the desire to learn more. So Bro. Goodrich called us up and we ended up meeting with Monica just this week at the Goodrich's home. As we were getting to know Monica she expressed to us the desire to fill an emptiness in her heart. She has a nice house, a fiancée, a great  job that she loves, essentially she has it all, but she feels like there is a small part of her that is incomplete. We shared with her the plan of salvation, or God's plan of happiness for all of His children. As we explained to her that before we came to earth we all lived with God and were part of his family, you could just see this change in Monica. We continued to talk about how God loves us so much that He has provided a way for us to be forgiven of our sins and become pure and clean, through the sacrifice of His son Jesus Christ. We talked about how after this life we will be judged according to our works here on life and how if we remain faithful to the end, we can attain exaltation (living with God in a state of never ending happiness as a family.) This message brings peace and purpose to our lives and I could see Monica begin to change as she came to realize Gods plan for her. We have a meeting with her again today and I cant wait to see her!

2. Rebecca Choi gave us a referral for her friend Sam who actually recently came to Eddie Choi's (Rebeccas husband's) baptism. Apparently Sam has been asking questions about the church for a while, which is supper exciting! We get to meet with Sam on Wednesday :)

3. Sister Cabrera has a really good friend Marisol who has had a pretty tough life and for years Sis. Cabrera has felt that she needs to share the gospel with her, but hasn't been able to get the courage to ask her friend to meet with the missionaries- that is until last week! Woot Woot! We challenged Sis. Cabrera to extend the invitation to Marisol and her friend agreed!

These 3 referrals truly are a miracle. Up to this point on my mission I have never actually been able to scheduled an appointment with a member referral, let alone have the members actually put the effort in to make the appointment! It is just incredible...

I know that Heavenly Father is mindful of all His children. He loves each and everyone of us. He will always be there to support us all we have to do is Trust in him.

Also Elder Jerowsky, the people in Oakville love you haha (The Guveras and Nuscas)

So I really liked those 2 colours together, but i couldnt wear 2 shirts.... so sister rogers said she would wear one :D

Line of the Week:

11:45 pm Sister Rogers sits bolt up right in bed

Rogers: "Do we have to kneel to pray for our investigators?"

Me: "What the..."

Rogers gets out of bed and kneels down and starts to mumble something

Me: "....get back in bed Sis. Rogers, your dreaming."

Sister Rogers gets back in bed and goes to sleep hahaha!

Scripture of the Week: 2 nephi 2: 25

"Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy."

A Haiku for You:

He is there

Heavenly Father

perspective

 Sister Hall

please include this in my email home too

During our life we know that the Lord gives us challenges and opportunities to grow and stretch in various ways so that he can shape and mold us into what he wants us to become. During our mission experience that process is compressed and magnified significantly. We often refer to this process as the refiner’s fire. It is revealing to understand the origin of the term refiner’s fire.It originated with the process of refining silver. A refiner is a person who uses extreme heat or fire to separate the silver from the other material that pollutes the purity of the silver. This is done by heating the entire mix of materials so that it becomes a hot liquid mass. As the silver is heated the impurities float to the top and the master silver smith removes them. He then turns up the heat again to bring more impurities to the top. He continues this process until all the impurities have been removed. During this time he must always watch the silver, for if it is heated too much it will be destroyed. As we reflect on this process in our lives we see that the Savior is the great refiner. See Isa. 1:25;48:10;Zech. 13:9;Mal. 3:2–3.

Of this refining process Elder Dallin H. Oaks made the following observation, “So much of our lives are like the process of refining silver. Father Lehi promised his son Jacob that God would ‘consecrate [his] afflictions for [his] gain’ (2 Nephi 2:2). The Prophet Joseph was promised that ‘thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high’ (D&C 121:7–8). Most of us experience some measure of what the scriptures call ‘the furnace of affliction’ (Isaiah 48:10; 1 Nephi 20:10).Our needed conversions are often achieved more readily by suffering and adversity than by comfort and tranquillity. Through the justice and mercy of a loving Father in Heaven, the refinement and sanctification possible through such experiences can help us achieve what God desires us to become.”

From time to time as we experience stress, fatigue, and discouragement remember that we are in the refiner’s fire and that sometimes the master refiner has to turn up the heat to refine and purify us. Embrace that time so that he can remove the impurities from our lives and we can learn all that he has prepared to teach us.

This one is for Jill! Notice the hockey glove hahaha

Do or Die

Do or Die

It's been a big week all around I hear! First off Jill is officially married, say WHAT! but seriously what the heck haha! All Saturday our conversations between sister Rogers and I looked a little something like this
Me: "My sister gets married today!"
Me: "its 1 hour till my sis is married..." 

Me: "30 min till my sisters married!"

Me:"CRAP my sister has been married 2 hours!" 

Haha I was thinking about you guys ALL day, except for the time I wasn't... (We were thinking about her too...we had a cardboard cut out of her at the wedding so she could join in the festivities!! -J) 

A quick shot of Lauren at the wedding!

So I have a bone to pick with you Dad and its about how you taught me to drive -_- I am now the designated driver and in each car there is this little black box called a Tiwi, and the best way to describe this box is that its like our prophet. It warns you of coming danger by saying things like this in the most robotic voice ever: "Check your speed." or my personal favorite "Aggressive driving!"

When ever you get a warning someone in Utah gets a notification who then lets our mission know. If you get too many warnings your tiwi license is taken away.
Now this is what you taught me since I was 15 years old

Dad: "Only pansies take corners slow! Accelerate through the turn!"

.... I have gotten a total of 6 aggressive driving warnings in the past week -___-

On a different note, you will be very impressed to know that I have been without a GPS this past week (we used Sister Ogdens) I seriously thought about going out to buy one, but then I thought about you and figured I'd go old school and use.... A MAP! Haha Sister Rogers is my captain Kurk? or would she be Spock? Anyways she navigates for me and we get along pretty well.

This week has been my very first week of training sister Rogers and I must say she is the butter to my bread! Seriously though, she is absolutely amazing! She is catching on super fast and is really easy going, which I am grateful for! She also does anything I tell her to do which is sweeeet cause it makes for some good times. Let me give you an example of a new training method I think they should implement in all missions, its called "Follow the spirit to the investigators house cause your trainer wont help you." HAHA! So let me give you a little back ground. We are walking to Sammy's house to go visit him and Sister Rogers asks if this is the right turn. In stead of answering her I tell her to follow the spirit. She looks at me and laughs and then realizes that I am dead serious. Good thing Sister Rogers likes a challenge, cause she went with it. We spent the next little while walking around the neighborhood trying to find his house. If she saw a house that she thought was his she would ask me if it was and I'd say, "Lets go see!" So we'd go knock on the door and some random would open it and we'd have to do a door approach. It was a lot of fun! It also didn't take her long to find Sammy's house! ->so inspired! :)

This week had a few unexpected pot holes, Angela dropped us..... Ah it just kills me! She found some anti stuff on the internet and doesnt want to continue to meet. It was hard hearing it from her because I know this is what she is looking for and I know how much the gospel will bless her life! She has had multiple spiritual experiences and was making a lot of progress. Everything happens for a reason though. I know that the Lord will watch over her and who knows what He has in store for her! Something my trainer always told me was that when an investigator drops you, that is just the Lord making room for someone he has prepared and I feel strongly that the Lord has prepared a FAMILY for us to baptize this transfer! HAZA! Sister Rogers and I are on the hunt for this family! We are going through neighborhoods like crazy looking for them :) We know the Lord will provide and we are excited to see the fruits of our labors!

We taught Sammy this week and were able to help him to see that there was indeed an apostasy! YESSSS!!! We used some great scriptures from the Bible (2 Thessalonians and Acts) that talked about a falling away and a restitution. It took a good 40 min of discussion and re-explaining, but you cant argue with scripture!.... or can you...-_- Sammy is now stuck on the whole "One Lord, one faith, one baptism." and claims that he doesnt need to be baptized again... I swear it goes in one ear and out the other... I told him we would address that concern next time we meet. 

So today during my studies I got to read about my FAVORITE Book of Mormon story, the Stripling Warriors! Oh my goodness I get chills every time I read about them! I saw this story in a little bit of a different light this go around though. We all know the verses that talk about how they had faith because their mothers believed etc.. and it got me thinking about this day and age and the HUGE number of sister missionaries serving now. I realized that a big part of the reason I am serving a mission is because of my very own mama! She raised me good and right in the gospel and her strong testimony kept me on the straight and narrow throughout my life. I am worthy to be on a mission because of everything she sacrificed for me! God knew that at this time He was going to need a lot more missionaries, so He saved these parents for this specific time because He knew they would raise good children that would serve him. The missionary force is like Helamans warriors who are going out to find those lost sheep. So I wanted to give a shout out to all the mothers and grandmothers with kids on a mission and thank them for everything they have done! I love my mom SO much and am SO grateful for support that she gives me :) 

Line of the Week: Probably one of my favorite things about training is seeing Sister Rogers contact people on the street. Mostly because it makes me feel reassured that every missionary is truly awkward when they first come out. Here is an experience we had just yesterday

Walking down the street I watch someone walk past us and look at sister Rogers and say...

Me: "Why didn't you talk to that person?"

Rogers: "Ah I'm sorry!"

Me: " I betcha that person has a family that God wants us to teach, man and you just let him pass by..." (said in a joking/loving/serious way)

Rogers: "Ok, ok! I've got the next one I promise!"

->A guy with a cigaret and piercings walks around the corner. And like any good trainer I laugh out loud! God has such a great sense of humor! 

Rogers: "Ok not that one! I'll get the one after him!"

Me: "We are ALL God's children. You can't pick and chose."

->He is now very close to us

Rogers: "Hhhiiiii????" *she actually says hi like its a question and I about die laughing but keep it together*

->the guy stops and looks at her. Sister Rogers looks super confused and pauses there for 5 seconds with her mouth opened. I let her suffer a little longer and then swoop in and start talking.
After Sister Rogers and I had a really good laugh about it and I told her I was proud of her for doing it.

Scripture of the week: Alma 56: 47-48 

"Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.

And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not daunt our mothers knew it."

A Haiku For You

Red Head Kids (and cute ones at that, I'm sure! -J)

Eternal Marriage

Jill Bennett

Thats all for this week! I love you all too much to bare! Glory in God always and go out and get yourself into an awkward situation! 

Sister Hall

IT'S A GIRL!

IT'S A GIRL!

So I just wanted to give everyone a quick update on the June Harvest! Last week we were standing at 52 baptisms and this last week in June we got........ 26 baptisms for a total of 78 baptisms in June!!!!! What What! The whole mission is just SO excited! How blessed we have been by the Lord! 

This is the district band pose hahahahah

I cannot believe my big sister is getting married in 4 days...... ah! This is SO weird! I'm sad I wont be there but I am SO excited for you Jill n' Tyson!  Be good and have fun! (Sound advice! -J)

I think now is also a good time to give you a quick update on some of the investigators that people have taken an interest in:

The Gypsies: So we have stopped by them a couple times, but the mother and Marco are never home.... We don't have their number and they live in Mississauga so its hard to get out to see them

Carlos: We found out that Carlos is not in our area so we had to hand him off to other missionaries

Sharon: Sharon has expressed the desire to take it very slow. She doesnt want to be baptized for at least a year and just wants to visit with us missionaries.

District bowling!

Big news! My street approach has improved! So my dad asked me to keep him updated on the successes I have in my mission as well as my funny moments (specifically with my street contacting) so here goes my success story!

We are walking on the street and we see a guy working on his lawn so we stop to talk with him. We find out that he is Catholic and we continue to talk with him then he said something profound, he said, "The Catholic church is corrupt, but I would never leave it. All religion is corrupt, thats just the way it is." 

That struck me as very interesting so I asked him, "Don't you believe that God would have one true church that teaches His children how to return to live with him again?"

He stopped to ponder and I jumped on the opportunity 

"We share a unique message about the restoration of the gospel. See, when Jesus Christ and His apostles were killed, there was no one left with the authority from God to lead His church. As a result man was left to interpret the gospel by his own means, and precious truths were lost. However, God loves his children and He wants them to be able to return to live with Him again, so out of love He called another prophet in this day to restore the church  that Jesus Christ established and teach God's children what they must do to qualify to live with Him. I know that this message is true, that God has indeed called a prophet today to lead his children and I know that if you meet with us you can find out for yourself if this is true." 

John: looks at Sister Ogden and says, "This girl is a good preacher!"

Hahaha! He told us that we could come by anytime and talk with him more about this prophet so we are looking forward to meeting with him again.

We had another pretty cool experience this week with a new investigator named Neil. Neil is the husband to an active member of the church and she has pretty much forced him into taking the missionary discussions. Go sister Gould! Unfortunately, its hard to teach when someone is not sure why the message would be important to them.... We decided that we would talk about the plan of salvation, you know the whole spiel on families are forever... we thought it would tug at his heart strings maybe. So we ask him if he believes there is a God and he says that he isnt too sure, so we start talking to him about the character of God. We talk about this for 10 min and we arent getting very far with him and I can tell he is not very interested. Then I look him straight in the eye and say this:

"Neil you are the literal son of a Heavenly Father. He knows you inside and out and He loves you SO much. In fact He loves you so much He has blessed you with a beautiful wife and 3 healthy daughters. He wants what's best for you and more than anything He wants you to be able to return to live with him one day as a family, and what we are teaching you is the path that He has set out for you to be able to do that." 

Oh my gosh the spirit was SO strong and you could tell he felt it. The rest of the lesson went on and nothing really stuck out, but I could tell he felt the spirit, I could see it begin to work within him.

So I have some big news. Jill may be the first one to get married, but I am the first one to have a kid.... thats right, this transfer I have unknowingly been pregnant and just yesterday I gave birth to a 110lb baby girl! hahaha in other words we got transfer calls on Sunday and I am staying in Oakville annnd I'm training.... BAH! "The Lord qualifies those he calls, the Lord qualifies those He calls..." I have had to repeat these sentences for the last few days in anticipation to picking Sister Rogers up. I cannot believe God called me to train a brand new missionary!  Thankfully Sister Rogers came pre-trained. The first thing she said to me was that she was excited to be on a mission because she likes a challenge and she cant wait to go tracking and such..... I swear the clouds of Heaven opened up when she said that and I could hear the angels singing. I am SO grateful and blessed to have her! She couldnt wait to go out and talk to people on the streets. Yesterday I went to the trainers meeting and found out Sister Ormond (my MTC companion) is also training, which was sweet! Then we took our new missionaries out and started to work. It was a solid day. I took sister Rogers to meet the bishop, dropped by less actives and talked with people on the street. All in all it was a good first day! 

Oh also, Sister Rogers knows Elizabeth! She spent time with her in India... small world!!!!!

My new baby! Sister Rogers, Sister Williams (Grandma) and me

Welllllllllllllll thats all for now folks. Sorry this is a little shorter, but there is much work to do out here! I love you all and thank you all for the support! Keep smiling!

Line of the Week: 

Sister Ogden street contacting after a long day

Ogden: "What do you think happens when we die?"

Lady: "No idea but it would be nice to know"

Ogden: "Ya i wish i knew..."

me in a whisper: "You do know...."

Ogden: without missing a beat  "but I do know and I can help you find out too..."

ahahahahahahahah so funny! we about died laughing after the lady walked away 

Scripture of the week: Alma 44: 4 

"Now ye see that this is the true faith of God; yea, ye see that God will support, and keep, and preserve us, so long as we are faithful unto him, and unto our faith, and our religion; and never will the Lord suffer that we shall be destroyed except we should fall into transgression and deny our faith." 

A Haiku for You: 

Comforter

speaker of all truth

still small voice

Sister Hall

Elder Burgason and Elder Roberts :D