FELIZ NAVIDAD

¡Hola todos!

Wow, this is so crazy that I am here in Kerrville now!!! Let me just tell y'all, this place is so cool! The members are on top of it with their family mission plans and we've got lots of non member referrals. We're just still trying to work on getting more people to teach and helping people keep commitments. We've got 2 kids named Zack and Julia who are on baptism date, but they haven't been able to come to church. So pray for them & their mom (returning member) that they'll have the desire to come to church! 

So Wednesday was my last day in Canyon Lake, and in the evening we went to the Christmas mutual party with the youth. The Haight family does a Christmas party every year filled with lots of treats and gathering around the campfire. We were able to share a spiritual thought towards the end as we were circled around the fire, and then it turned into a testimony meeting about our Savior Jesus Christ. AND GUESS WHAT THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING HAPPENED. Kindalynn bore her testimony!!! (A few weeks ago I wrote about Kindalynn & her parents who live in our apartment complex and now the missionaries are teaching them) But wow it was just the most amazing thing, to hear her say how she felt so much love from the members as they shared their testimonies about Heavenly Father & Jesus Christ, and to hear her own testimony about her Savior. I just have so much love for her & the wonderful members of Canyon Lake :))) 

Also we had a wonderful sacrament meeting yesterday! There were several talks about the Savior along with some musical numbers, and since one of the pianists was sick I got to fill in for the Young Women's musical number, so that was fun! And the amazing thing is that I got to see some members from my 1st area! Kerrville is part of the YSA boundaries but I never went up to Kerrville when i was serving in the YSA cause it was far away from everything else. But yeah that was a tender mercy to see some of the YSA members that are home for Christmas :)

Sister Warr! Mi compañera nueva :) 

Kind of short on time today again, we're spending part of our p-day doing Christmas eve service at the Ronald McDonald house with our zone and with the Polley's! But I do want to leave y'all with my testimony of our Savior, Jesus Christ. I know that He lives, that He loves and cares about us. I know that Heavenly Father loves us so much, that He sent His Only Begotten Son to be the Savior for us all. The greatest gift that all of us have already received is the gift of Christ's life. His Atonement is the way that we can return to live with Him, our Heavenly Father, and our families for eternity. And He also lived a perfect, sinless life, leading by example so that we can follow in His footsteps and be prepared to live in our Father's presence. I am so grateful for this time that we have to remember His birth & His life. Because of Him we have so many wonderful blessings to be thankful for!!! 

 I love y'all and wish y'all a wonderful Christmas!! 

I'M LEAVING CANYON LAKE :(

Helping decorate Sister Schultz tree!

So sorry y'all, this email is going to be a quick one cause it's transfer week! We are taking Sister Wardle to the mission home today so we will be in a trio with Sister Sedgwick until transfers AND I gotta pack cause I'm leaving Canyon Lake!! I'm pretty sad about it, but it's alright cause I know Heavenly Father knows this is what's best for me. I'm going to miss the members & the people we're teaching SO SO MUCH :( but my new area is Kerrville & my new companion is Sister Warr! She's been companions with my past 2 companions, so I'm excited to serve with her! 

SANTA!!

The highlight of the week was the ward Christmas party! We got to help out with the nativity tour around the church. There were several rooms decorated with scenes of the nativity that some of the members acted out (like the shepherds, wisemen, etc.) Even including Samuel the Lamanite! :) it was good cause we were able to see everyone that came as they did the tour, and 2 people that we are teaching came! Steve and Mary came (her son Ethan came too!) 

I'm so grateful for this Christmas season that we have to remember the birth of our Savior! I know that He lives and I know that we can find peace and lasting joy as we follow His example. 

I hope y'all have a wonderful week! 

Last pictures with the best district :( 

"Y'all got comp'd??"

Hey y'all!!!

Wow, another great week in the TSAM as always :) We met our weekly goal of New People again which was so great! We've been finding a lot of people through our own efforts, so now we just to have to find some member friends for them so they will come to church! Sadly no one came to church this week :( but we will get there soon! 

We had zone conference this week, and it was our special Christmas conference so we got to hear several musical numbers! Also, we had the most bomb lunch! Every year for the Christmas zone conferences, some special members who barbecue come together and make a BBQ lunch for the missionaries! It seriously is the coolest thing ever cause the main guy brings his special smoker and takes 10+ hours to smoke the meat. I'm sad I didn't take a picture of it, but just know that Texas is the place to go if you want real BBQ ;) so yummy!!! 

Funny quote of the week: Sister Monroe and I ran into Elder Rash who was with us in the CCM, we haven't seen him since like last year basically since he was in Austin. We pass him in the hall during break at Zone Conference, and the only thing he said to us was "Y'all got comp'd?" And then walked away. Hahahhah love that Elder

I went on exchanges with Sister Rice this week in her area, and we had the most amazing miracle! Our appointments fell through in the evening, so we went to a neighborhood and just started knocking on potentials. There was one particular house that we walked by that had lots of lights & Christmas decorations on outside, and I had the prompting that we should go knock on their door. I thought "Let's just compliment them on their yard!" So that's what we did! A middle aged man named Alex answered the door, and the first thing we did was compliment him on the lights. He smiled and said thanks and told us that he was also decorating his neighbors yard haha. We got talking to him and introduced ourselves, and we asked him if he would be interested in hearing a message about Jesus Christ. He said, "I'm finishing dinner right now, but could y'all come back in 15 minutes?" YES of course we can :) haha so we walked around the neighborhood some more, and Sister Rice and I were discussing what we were going to do in case if there wasn't another female in the home, cause we really wanted to sit down with him and have a lesson! But tender mercy from Heavenly Father! We got back to Alex's house, and he opened his garage & set out lawn chairs for all of us :) 

Alex went on to tell us throughout the lesson that he has been needing change in his life, but he hasn't known where to go to. We could not have had a more perfect lesson--we taught him the Restoration, introduced him to the Book of Mormon and read several scriptures with him, and invited him to come to church this Sunday. He agreed to read, pray, come to church, and meet with the Sisters again on Saturday. He was just so prepared! Wow! It was so cool. We were just so amazed to see how much God has His hand in our life, and how things just fell into place with our plans so that we could meet Alex that evening & teach him. 

Some other highlights from the week: We got to teach the Laurel's class yesterday! Which was seriously so much fun, I love those girls so much and it just brings me back to when I was in Young Womens :) Also, Michele got a calling yesterday! She's teaching the 10 year olds in Primary, and we are so excited for her! 

We also got to go to the temple with Michele. It was AMAZING! Our ward mission leader and his wife came, along with Elder Baughman who is one of the temple & family history senior missionaries. Aaron (one of the ward missionaries) works at the temple and was able to baptize all of us, which was so cool cause he leaves on his mission to Rome this week! Michele was really touched by it because Aaron sang at her baptism, and she especially felt the Spirit so strongly when she saw Brother Marshall be proxy for her dad's baptism :)

One quote that I love that President Polley said this week "We have the priviledge of sharing the fulness of the Gospel!" I truly am grateful for this opportunity to share the restored gospel with others. I know I probably say it every week haha, but it truly is wonderful to be a part of God's work! I know we all have that same opportunity, whether we wear a nametag or not. President Nelson gave an invitation to a small group of youth in San Antonio before the Devotional when he met with them for a Q&A, that President Polley shared with us at Zone Conference. When the youth asked how to help those who have fallen off the gospel path, or to invite others to learn more, the Prophet said 2 words-- "Be Beautiful!" He went on to say how we can share the light of the Gospel with our smiles & examples, and others will be touched. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has blessed my life in so many ways. It truly is a beautiful thing and I invite y'all to share that beauty with others especially during this Christmas season.

I love y'all with all my heart! 

From Weakness to Strength

Guess what?? We've got 5 new people we're teaching!!! Let me tell y'all about it :)))) 

So a few days ago during daily planning, Sister Monroe and I saw that our daily new person goal was set at 2 people. We asked each other if we had put it in, but we both said no. We decided to keep it though and made plans for finding throughout the day! We thought that we might come across some new people through knocking or stop by potentials. But it actually ended up a lot differently!

First, we had a lesson with Steve, who we found in our area book as an inactive member found by past missionaries, but his records aren't in our ward. We've had a couple of visits with him, and he has shared how he even started reading the Book of Mormon again a few days before we met him! So we took the Kimball's with us who are around his age, and they started asking him several questions about his experience with the church. He went on to tell us that he actually isn't a member of the church! He doesn't remember being baptized by immersion, he just knows a lot about the church because he was around latter day saint friends growing up. Sister Monroe and I just looked at each other like what??? Steve's great! He keeps talking about how much the Book of Mormon makes him feel good and helps him feel comfort. We're excited to keep working with him :) 

The other new person we found that day was Carol! So Carol we have already taught a little bit in the past, she has learned about the church for 4 years but goes back and forth. But she reached out to us recently and said that she keeps getting impressions non stop that she needs to be baptized! It's still kind of tricky though cause she doesn't want to stop going to the other church's she likes haha. We took her to the Elder's baptism this weekend with our RS president to see if that would help her receive an answer (She's gone to 3 baptisms before) but she said she really liked it! We'll see how things go with her, she still has a few things she needs to be taught in depth about, but she truly wants to do what's right! 

We are also teaching a family that lives in our apartment complex! Stacy and Joe used to be our neighbors until we moved to a different building, and we've been able to build trust with them through helping them move into their apartment and talking with them whenever we see them in the parking lot. They have a 17 year old daughter and then 2 other kids that are under 3 years old. They agreed to let us come by this last week, and in our visit we mostly just answered their questions! It was so fun haha, Sister Monroe was talking to Kindalynn a lot and I went back and forth with the parents and the little kids as well. We first gave the daughter and Stacy a Book of Mormon, and then Joe came up to me before we left and asked "Hey can I have one of those books as well?" And Kindalynn talked about how she has never been baptized before and she wants to come closer to God! Prime family :) 

For the day of service to start of December, we went to the animal shelter with the youth and got to help walk dogs! It was so much fun :) And we had an amazing bible class yesterday! We go up to Blanco each fast sunday to have a bible class with the residents at the rest home, and we had 3 ladies show up this time! Usually it's only 1 or 2 because everyone else is taking a nap. But it was so cool because our class led into the ladies going into a little testimony meeting haha! It was so cute :) 

Michele is just doing so great! We are getting close to going to the temple with her. We helped her find names this week on FamilySearch, and so we started adding census records to some of her ancestors. And then we went back her main line, and she saw her parents names with the green temple by it! We told her that the green temple means the names are ready to be reserved to take to the temple, and she just started crying. She told us again that doing temple work is one of the reasons she chose to be baptized so that she could save her family. I'm so excited for her to be able to go in the temple and to perform the ordinances for her parents!

I have realized that being on a mission, you learn a lot about yourself. Missions are filled with highs and lows, and sometimes Satan hits hard with negative thoughts. There was a quote that I found the other day (learn this lesson from me--always write things down that you learn in your studies! Otherwise you're like me right now where I'm going crazy that I can't remember where I found this quote hahaha) But anyways I read this quote that says that the Lord will not let us be content in our weaknesses. This phrase has played in my mind a lot this week, as I have come to learn that one of the ways we progress in this life is by choosing to overcome our weaknesses. Heavenly Father cannot just automatically make us stronger, otherwise how do we learn? He requires us to work at it each day, but He doesn't leave us alone. We have a loving Savior who knows exactly what our mortal journey feels like, pains and challenges and all. We can find comfort in knowing that as long as we rely on His grace and try our best each day, God will take care of the rest. But we can't become discouraged if we make mistakes! Satan will make us feel like it is hopeless to progress and that we are stuck in our weakness, but Heavenly Father gives us weakness because it is part of the Plan and He wants us to progress and become better than we were before.

"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." Ether 12:27