The things I sacrifice for the work ;)

I am doing great. Life in MA is wonderful! The weather has been in the 50's the last few days.. It has been perfect. I can't believe it has been a whole year either! The time has flown by and I will be home to you in no time. :) The highlight of my year. Hmm. Can I pick a few? :)

1. Taking DeDe to do the baptisms for her mom and gma. That was incredible. I have never felt the Spirit so strongly in my entire life. She was so happy and things were just so perfect. A part of my heart will forever be in the Boston Temple

2. It has been so awesome to get to feel a small portion of the love that Heavenly Father has for his children. He loves us SO much. I have come to rely on Him and love that I can talk to Him all day long, no matter what. I have struggled with confidence in myself and my ability to do hard things, but the Lord has taught me that I can do ALL things with Him. I don't have to be perfect or even good at it, I just have to ask Him for help and then be willing to do what He asks of me.

3. Teaching Ana, Athena, Carmen, and Jocelyn at Sister Mariano's house in Central Falls. That was the coolest experience. They were so excited about the gospel and it rubbed off on me. It strengthened my testimony. I look up to those girls a lot.

4. Spending Christmas Eve with the Bishop's family in Norwich. I have never understood the meaning of Christmas more than I this past one. It was so focused on Christ and that's how it should be. I felt so close to their family and so appreciative for all the love they had shown me while serving there.

5. Believe it or not, teaching Tom. He broke my heart, and it still aches to this day.. But he taught me a lot about myself and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He truly made me understand Alma in chapter 31 of the Book of Mormon. The Spirit that confirmed truth in those lessons cannot be denied.

Those are the first few things that come to mind. I bet I could think of more. :)

The rest of the week was pretty good. We had a mini missionary come and stay with us over the weekend. Her name is Sister Bramwell. I have a new slogan for mini missionaries. It's from bugs life when the old ant says,"They come, they eat, they leave!" That's what mini's do. :) hahaha  It has happened every time without fail. Something about the mission either makes you think you will never eat again, or you just become super hungry.  It was so funny.  We are getting another this Friday and will definitely have to go grocery shopping on Monday. :) 

We are grateful that this past week is over, now people are back in town which is a relief. 

We helped a non-member move around some boxes, she reminds me of the princess form Brave. Her hair is awesome. She wants to have us over for breakfast sometime soon, so hopefully we'll get to teach their family. :) 

Walking has been so nice. I am grateful to be spending more time outside and it has been great to get that exercise. 

Church is still crazy, trying to be in two places at once is hectic, but I love it. Serving in one ward will be boring after this! haha 

Today we went to the Christian Science church in Boston to hear one of the elders play the organ. It was incredible! He is so good and the people there were so friendly. I have some sweet pictures!!

Dinner appointments are the best. :) haha The other night I had to eat codfish. YUCK! It wasn't as bad as salmon though.  I think I would have avoided it, but it was at our stake president's house. The things I sacrifice for the work. ;) haha

I love this gospel more and more everyday

My week has been great. :) My new companions name is Sister Shields and she is from SLC. She is 19 and did a year and a half of school before she came out here. She is funny and so far we get along great. I have been blessed with such great companions. She must have been trained before she came out here, because she is already awesome

It was hard saying goodbye to Sister Bell. I felt like we were just getting started. :) It's alright though, she is close and I knew that Sister Shields and I were meant to serve together the minute I walked into transfer meeting. 

It is pretty awesome timing with losing our car in this weather, luckily members often feel bad for us so they drive us around from appointment to appointment. 

This week has been pretty slow because of February break. It always amazes me though when the Lord fills our schedules with productive things to do.He loves us. :) 

We went to the temple on Monday and that was wonderful. The new movie was good! I had so many questions and things go through my mind, I think it was the most I learned from a temple session yet. 

Teaching is going well. Our investigators are hard to pin down because they are all so busy, but when we do get to meet with them it is awesome. It's incredible how prepared people in this area are. I am so blessed to be serving here. :) 

I love this gospel more and more everyday. It's incredible how we can learn so much from studying the same topics everyday. I am learning how prayer is one of the most powerful ways to build our relationship with Heavenly Father. I love knowing that I can talk to Him all day long and that He is listening. 

We have been focusing a lot on personal contacting this week. It has been so much fun! Sister Shields and I are overcoming our fears together. My transfer goal is to focus on the love that Christ shows to everyone He comes in contact with. I want to learn how to love as He does.

I am training a brand new missionary!!

My week was so good and I am doing well. :) 

We spent last pday at the aquarium, which was so much fun!! We went with our whole district and we were able to ride the T-train. 

We taught our investigator Ali. He is so prepared. He teaches us the lessons! He knows so much, we will pull out our big guns with deep doctrine and he already knows about it and lives it. It's amazing. :) 

Our stake president has asked that each family who has us over for dinner invites a non-member to join us and the wards are doing it! We have been able to meet lots of potentials in the last week. 

They had to cancel MLC last week because of snow, but they made it up for us yesterday. :) We shoveled so much snow! It was fun and a good workout. We met a lot of new people too. :) 

We got to go into Cape Cod for zone meeting. We brought a bunch of props and role played contacting. It was fun, we are all so awkward.. 

SO T-TEXTS!! Sister Bell and I were positive that we would be staying together another transfer.. No cigar. President called us on Saturday to release us as sister trainers because he has new assignments for us. :) Sister Bell is going to help create a portable visitor's center. I am training a brand new missionary!! I am so excited! Training is the best thing in the world. :D I will miss being a sister trainer.  Yesterday was my last MLC. :( 

My greenies first area is going to be covering two wards without a car. :) They needed our car for another area.  So we get to walk. :) Let me tell you why this is a wonderful thing.

1. EXERCISE! I need it. :) It will be nice to spend time outside walking around

2. Personal contacting. We will be able to talk to so many people this way! Especially when it starts to get warm. I am  not very good at personal contacting. Heavenly Father is helping me with my weakness. :)

3. We will get to spend a lot of time with the ward. We were praying for a way to get the sisters out with us on splits.  The Lord works is mysterious ways, but I'll take it. :)

We spent time saying goodbye to the people we could before Sister Bell has to leave.  Transfers were supposed to be tomorrow, but due to bad weather concerns we are switching tonight. Pray for me. :) haha 

OH!! The best thing ever happened yesterday!! Do you remember DeDe and Steve? I got to see them yesterday. :D I wanted to cry I was so happy. I think about them all the time and love them so very much. They had so many things to show us and read to us. DeDe bore a beautiful testimony to us. It has almost been a year since she was baptized. :D TEMPLE THIS SUMMER! Steve is so funny. I can't wait for you guys to meet him.

Roxanne is doing well. :) She doesn't have a baptismal date, but her husband is taking the lessons!!

 I get to do a session on Monday because of the holiday! Woo! :)

This week's miracles :)

Went on exchanges this past week with Franklin and Plymouth. I stayed in Belmont with Sister Miller (Franklin).  We had such a good conversation with a non-member while we helped her move. She kept saying, "If this is it," "If you guys have the truth."  We had the opportunity to bare testimony about eternal families and the power of the priesthood. We told her that she is a dry-Mormon (someone who acts Mormon and follows the same things we do.. They are just not baptized yet. :) )and she thought that was so funny!  Ready for some more miracles?

1.We taught Farah. The language barrier is getting better between us. (She speaks Farsi). We have someone in the ward come with us and she was able to help us teach her English. We also were able to teach her about the Holy Ghost. She had never heard of Him before. I am not sure what she got out of the conversation but the Spirit was so strong. I love her so much and so does Heavenly Father. So good. :)

2. Sarah Lopez came to mutual! We had a great lesson with her parents about faith and the light of Christ. They are such good people. Hopefully we can get them to the Belmont ward soon.

3. We helped out at activity days. The theme of the day was Science!! Heavenly Father loves me. :)

4. We taught two first lessons this week. One was to a woman named Maria Teresa. We read the Book of Mormon with her and she asked such good questions about why bad things happen to good people. She is heading to Bolivia tomorrow so we left her with a million chapters to read in the BOM. She wants to give a BOM to her husband. Being a missionary already.

5. The other was to a guy named Van. He is a super genius. He did the research for the article about the brain in this months National Geographic. Check it out for me because I can't. :) haha He had such good questions about science and religion. I honestly only understood about 40% of what was said. He thought what we talked about was fascinating and wants to be apart of growing what we have. So cool.

I spent Wednesday in Plymouth with Sister Slater. We stacked books at the library for service. I thought I wanted to be a librarian.. I don't. haha Read scriptures with their recent convert, Dave. He used to play in the NFL. 

Almost our entire zone was out sick for district meeting on Friday. I caught the bug and spent most of the day on Saturday sleeping because going out in public would have been a bad idea.. hahaha.  I am feeling better.  Still stuffy, but oh well.

Life is good. :)

Me and Sister Bell

Martha's Vineyard

Sister Bell's birthday

MLK Day

The view out our window

Zone talent show

Did the Elders win???

Living the dream :)

GOATS :D