August 22, 2011

I'm glad you enjoyed your birthday, Mom!

This week was pretty busy. The fair was fun, though we only got a few pictures. The picture we did get together is very cute though--I can get that in the mail soon. We enjoyed ourselves though. We had an amazing lesson with one of our investigators, Chris. She came to church last Sunday and absolutely loved it! She said she felt right at home. She fell in love with the Gospel Principles book; she's been studying like crazy! She's reading the Book of Mormon, Gospel Principles, True to the Faith, Our Heritage...she just can't get enough. Now we just need to teach her about the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity...then we'll all be set! haha We're not too worried though, she's really sure that the Church is the church she wants to be a part of. :)

We spent a lot of time tracting...lots of rude people home yesterday. Eh. On Saturday morning we spent an hour/hour and a half walking around Everson "down town" and found a GRAND total of seven new contacts....eh.

We also got a media referral from Headquarters. This lady had been learning from Elders in Fresno before she moved up here last week. I guess she's been investigating for about a year, and she says she still has questions she'd like for us to answer. We also picked up one of her sisters and a neice that she's living with currently, so hopefully they'll move forward well!

Our ward members have us fully stocked on homemade jam. We have a jar of raspberry, blackberry and two jars of strawberry...we just finished a jar of raspberry-loganberry, and another jar of strawberry...It seems like every day last week we were coming home with a new jar of jam! It's great though. Our members really take care of us and make sure we're well fed.

Our mission conference was really awesome. Got to meet the three new sisters; one is from San Deigo, and she's being trained in Arlington now. A few of the sisters asked Sister Wilson if we'll be having a sisters' luncheon soon, and she said probably within the next transfer or so. We also found out from the APs that we're getting three more sisters next transfer! That'll take us up to 18 sisters! How exciting!

We got to hear from Elder Clayton of the Seventy, Sister Perry and Elder Perry. Elder Clayton talked on ways we can live up to our potential as missionaries. He emphasized the importance of effective planning and effective companionship study; how those two things help invite the spirit into our companionship and help the work in our areas, etc. He also talked about the importance of inviting investigators to pray for themselves when we're with them for lessons.

Sister Perry then talked about how we can recognize the Spirit. It was nice. Not much that I can really remember other than that though....oh well.

Elder Perry talked about how our purpose as missionaries is to 1) find people to teach, 2) teach people the true principles of the Gospel, 3) baptize worthy converts and 4) strengthen members of the Church. So refreshing to have an apostle reiterate that our purpose is MORE than just baptizing; the elders in our zone tend to forget that it seems. We'll see if they caught on though. Anyways. Elder Perry also talked about how important studying the Gospel is; how important our own testimonies are, etc. We got to shake each of their hands at the beginning, and Elder Perry shook a few of our hands on the way out. I was on the edge of our row, so he shook my hand and wished me, "Have a good mission1" It was quite nice of him.

We don't have very many big plans for today. We're going into Bellingham to go to Walmart (woo! such a big trip...!) and then we'll probably just hang around the apartment until dinner. Sister Taua has an ear infection, so we'll try to take it easy.

Hope you and Dad are ready to keep me updated on BYU football; we don't have many fans out this way...

Glad you were able to attend Paul's wedding and that all went well. Too bad about your flight there, though! That doesn't sound like too much fun. Are you planning on going up next weekend? haha It seems like the past couple of emails it's been all about your trips to Utah! Are you going up for Hilary's wedding in September?

Anyways, I think that's all the news from me. Hope you all have a wonderful week! Don't forget I won't be emailing you on Labor Day!

Love you,
Sister Heather Holdsworth