Hello!!

Hello!!

 

It's been another week of working hard! We are getting the ball rolling and the work moving in this area. We have been working hard, being exactly obedient, and working with members and less actives and part members as much as we can. And that's all we can do, and all the Lord can expect of us. We have been tracting and finding a lot more than teaching, but that's to be expected when opening a new area!

 

Sister Thacker is wonderful and she is a hard worker! She is only 19 but very mature for her age. She's hilarious and is a great missionary already. 

 

The Elders in our ward have had the same concerns about how to get the ball rolling in our ward, and we sat down and talked with Bishop yesterday. We know that we need to involve members in the work more! We sat down with him and made a game plan that we are super excited about. We are going to focus on one area at a time and "blitzkreig" it. Until now, the Elders have stayed on their side of the ward and we have stayed on ours. But we had a Zone Conference this week where they said that we don't have too. So that got us to thinking, and when we talked with Bishop this is what we came up with. Basically we are going to work with the Elders and with the members in a specific section of the ward, and put all of our efforts and focus on it at once, visiting all of the Less Actives, receiving referrals, the members in that area will hold cottage meetings in their houses where people can learn about the gospel, hold a family history conference/information night at another members house, and basically just focus on one area of the map/ward for a few weeks or a month at a time and then go to another! Blitzkreig!

 

We have prayed about it and the Elders and us both felt like we should work in a certain area, so that's where we are starting and we are excited to get the ball rolling! Oh and Sister Thacker had a brilliant idea too that we are going to implement. We are going to do a "40 day fast" where each member family that we eat with will fast for the missionary effort that day that they feed the missionaries, and then over 40 days we will have 40 days of fasting! Or if the Elders and us eat at different homes every night for 20 nights, then we could have 40 days of fasting in 20 days.

Super exciting things and we can't wait to get the ball rolling! 

 

 

Love you all, thanks for the support!!!

Hello from Lincolnton!

So I just wrote an email and accidentally deleted the whole thing and my time is running out. But..... I'll give you the highlights. 

 

My new area is awesome. And Sister Thacker is my companion. She's wonderful and from Hooper, Utah. She's 19! We are opening a new area!! Basically the ward we are in is super huge and the Elders were never able to get to everywhere, so now the Ward has Elders AND Sisters. We are on the East, the Elders on the West. Because of that, we don't have alot to go off of. It's a lot different than my last area where we had a lot of investigators and just a lot going on. They don't really have anything for us to start with...so we have been working hard and tracting and finding a lot. But I know that we neasure our success on our DESIRE to fulfill our purpose and our worthiness and work, not on how many people use their agency to choose to listen. So we have been very sucessful, because we have definitley been working our tails off and tracting and finding! We have been visiting Less Actives and part members a lot as well. It's amazing how people's hearts are softened towards Sisters. There was one family we visited where the Husband grew up in the church, converted his girlfriend, and they were married in the temple. Now it's years later and they have fallen away. He has two children. He let us in and is willing for us to teach his family and wants to try and come back. The Bishop said he has never let Elders or anyone visit him before!

I am doing great and working hard. Oh and we have a car, it's a Chevy Cruise and I get to drive it now :) It's fun :) it's fancy and I don't know what to do with all of the buttons.

We don't have any CD's but the Elders let us borrow one called "The Work: A Nashville tribute to the Missionaries" and it's wonderful!

Love you all thanks for the support!

2nd Transfer

This week has been a whirlwind. We have been using the saviors peace and blessing to increase our teaching pool and have had a lot of success. Melanie and her kids got baptized on Saturday and confirmed yesterday! It was a wonderful experience and it was beautiful to watch her and her kids enter the waters of baptism and make that covenant with God. We had a lot of the ward come and support- we even had to move from the relief society room to the chapel because there were so many! Also many of Melanie's friends came who we were able to talk to and set up appointments with. We we going to have a testimony meeting while they were changing but or ward mission leader decided to have us teach the restoration instead because of all of the non members there. It was a lot different teaching in front of a large group. Then they were confirmed in church yesterday and Melanie even bore her testimony about how grateful she was to have met us. It was bittersweet to see all of the wonderful ward members because---wait for it....

I AM GETTING TRANSFERRED AND TRAINING A NEW SISTER!!! President called us Saturday to let us know. All of us are splitting up. Sister Bowman is staying here to train a new sister, sister Charles and Anderson are being transferred together somewhere, and I was very surprised when President said oh and sister Forsyth is going to train a new sister in lake field ward. The training program is 12 weeks long and so I haven't even finished my training yet but I will be on my own training a new sister in a ward that I don't think has had sisters before!! Starting tomorrow I will be moved to an area 2 or 3 hours from here with a new sister from the mtc. Needless to say I am a little

Nervous but I know with the Lords help I can do all things. This is humbling because this means Heavenly Father and President Craven are trusting me with a lot. I will be on my knees and on the phone asking questions a lot but I know Heavenly Father will teach me what to do.

So that's my big news!! Whew!! I am excited.

As always thank you for all of the love and support.