Word of the Week: Awesome!

9/9/13

Dear Family:

Okay this last week. First of all...ZONE CONFERENCE WAS AWESOME!!!!!! Because guess who else came to my zone conference? My last zone that I was in. So I saw my old comp and gave her the hugest hug. I also saw missionaries from my last district and people from old zone trainings and whatnot. It was awesome. It was a conference with all my favorite people. Last week was a good realization for me that I sincerely love and care about all the missionaries here. They are my family...and they help me out sooooo much. They are awesome examples and true friends. I'm so blessed to be working alongside with God's elect. They are elect. They inspire me and are just amazing people.

Things I learned in zone conference: first of all President Scott talked about "stretching." How it is important to continue to stretch and grow. It meant a lot to me. Sometimes I think "Man...I have so many things to work on...." and it overwhelms me. But I learned that it is AWESOME that I have so many things to improve on. Without improvement and goals missions would be boring. I am so grateful to have the chance to continue to strive to be better. I hope I never "plateau" on my mission. That I can continue to grow and learn...and never get to the point where I feel like "I'm good." The spirit was so strong. I also was reminded of our individual worth to Heavenly Father. God knows us. He loves us. And even though he has numberless children...he numbers them! I know that God knows ME. He knows YOU. And Satan gets me sometimes when he tells me I don't matter or I'm lesser than my brothers and sisters. Satan makes us feel like the exception. But we aren't. Okay enough of my soap box-missionary-talk. But yeah I love zone conference can't you tell? :)

Anyways investigators are good. One of our investigators might be getting baptized....THIS WEEK! Yup. This next Sunday. Well we will see but whatever happens...I will let you know for sure.

Anyways I'm going to send a pic now. But I hope you have a great week. I love you so much. I really do. Have an awesome amazing week!

I Love It Here! I Love Everything!

9/3/13:  Okay updates. Honestly I don't know where to start.... The work is going AWESOME over here.

We are teaching investigators from Italy, Ecuador, Turkey, Ethiopia, Japan, the Philippines, Portugal and Asia.

The Cutest! Kid! Ever! came to primary and loved it. There's a kid in our ward who knows him from school. He sat by him in sacrament meeting and it was so tender to see that even though we didn't ask the kid to sit by him, he did it automatically. But he is excited to be baptized...we are teaching him but he has a lot of questions. It's awesome. :)

Another investigator: He is so super duper prepared. We see him 3x a week and he's come to church for the second week in a row. He is reading the Book of Mormon in Turkish and looooves it. I'll always remember him telling us how he felt when he read 3 Nephi. He told us that he just knew that it was good.  

We picked up a new investigator. He is so cool. He is from Japan and is studying english here. He is awesome! He gave a prayer at the end of our lesson...and it was so sincere… it was great. He said that "he felt good at church"... :)

Another investigator asks 100 questions every lesson. It's awesome! He wants to keep meeting and learning more. And he is reading his Book of Mormon. Have you ever seen Amheric? It is crazy cool looking! He reads Amheric and I just don't understand how he does it.

We had an exchange with the Sister Training Leaders.I went to another city with one sister, and my comp and another trainer stayed here. I didn't realize how much I loved Toronto until I left! The other place was fun though...it's weird. I'm not used to people who aren't in a rush. Exchanges are awesome...but man I definitely found out that there are SO many things to work on. I love it. And at the same time I feel pretty humbled. But it was great!

We still have four girls in our apartment...and our apartment is...kinda messy and kinda of a wreck. Oops. It's hard to clean when four girls are running around all the time. It's been super fun though! We love the sisters so much. They are a blast! They are moving out either the end of this week or next week. We will see.

Well I'm doing awesome. I love it here. I love my comp. I love life. I love everything! Mom I never know what to say when you ask me how I am. I'm always doing good. I'm super excited for the amount of work that is here for us in Toronto. There's so much work and so little time!

Tender mercy: I just want to bear testimony that FASTING is real. There is real power behind fasting. I'm so grateful for the opportunity we have to fast each month. I feel like prayers are answered most powerfully when we fast. I had a cool experience this last fast sunday. I don't have enough time to write about it but maybe in a future email I can tell you.

Love you so much family! Thanks for your support and love.