August 20th & 27th letters

August 20, 2012 How are all of you? Doing well, doing well here. I hope everyone had a lovely happy weekend of celebrations: birthday, anniversaries, and the all. Well, our investigators: One of them came to stake conference yesterday! (My 2nd stake conference this year.) She enjoyed it. But informed me it wasn't her first to attend! She's practically already a member, just not baptized yet. She also told me how she has all of her baptismal program figured out. She just now needs to figure out refreshments and table cloth and the such. She is amazing! Another of our investigators we re-taught the restoration, emphasizing the apostasy and the priesthood. We told him to pray about our church being the only church with God's priesthood authority - being truly God's church. He is still very open and willing to learn. He was out of town again this weekend, so he couldn't come to church :(... Our lesson with the part member family was well...the dad can be frustrating. He believes what he believes and doesn't really want to believe anything else because he doesn't want to change...it seems. But he's fine with meeting with us...We committed his less active wife to come to church yesterday, but they didn't come. Sad. We just need to get them to come to church. The wife did do the reading assignments. She read some of it to her husband, but when he recognized it, he didn't want to finish any of it. I hope we can help him! I hope he will be more willing to let us help him! We picked up 2 new investigators last night. Father and son. Last time we talked to the dad we committed him to read from the Book of Mormon. He actually read the first 11 chapters. We were actually kind of surprised. Our lessons basically consisted of inviting the son to allow us to to teach him, which he accepted! At first he seemed kind of hesitant, but then accepted us coming over and teaching him. He seems to almost be soul-searching, but hasn't done much of it because he doesn't like being stressed out about things. We are excited to start teaching him and his dad! And hopefully next time the oldest son/brother will be there and we can teach him too! We are still working with our less actives, an excommunicated member, and with our recent convert! We are also trying to find more investigators through tracting and members. So...thought for the day. Today I was reading Alma 37 and there was a phrase I really liked. It said, "look and live". Then I researched other scriptures that talked about that. The overall idea I found is that if we Look towards the Savior, we will find our lives - we will have eternal life - and eternal life of happiness. I love that. I know it is true. We look towards the Savior, he can help heal our wounded souls. More peace and happiness comes from living his gospel, from following His example. Today we were watching a clip about the Powers of Heaven. When we are more Christ-like, we have more love, more meekness, more peace, and more unity between others. When we break the powers of heaven, we follow the spirit of the adversary, we loose all of that. Instead we have unhappiness, guilt, angry feelings, remorse, etc. All the negative feelings we can feel in life. Lately, I've noticed that when I get frustrated with my companion, the spirit leaves me and I cannot function as a missionary. The spirit is essential to this work. And so, when I feel the spirit leave me, I pray that I can overcome whatever annoyance I felt and I apologize to my companion. Like yesterday, we got frustrated at each other. I prayed in my heart, and I kept hearing in my mind that I must say that I was sorry. "I'm Sorry" might be the hardest two words to say, but once they are said the spirit returns and happiness ensues sadness. So really "I'm sorry" are the 2 happiest words to say. I love the spirit. And want it in my life daily. It makes such an impact on me. I just have to continually learn to rely on its constant guidance. For I know the spirit will always direct me to do good, for it has always done that. Well, I love you all bunches and bunches! Remember to be happy and to listen to the still small voice of the Holy Ghost! August 27. 2012 How are all of you doing? How's life in the other world? Well, this week, this week... We picked up a new investigator! A 14 year old girl who's had a tough life. But she wants hope, she wants a better life. Her grandmother is the only member of the church and she's kind of living with her right now too...part time that is. We taught her the restoration yesterday. And she said she believes it all! So cool! So awesome! And she goes to mutual almost every week. She's become friends with one of the girls in our ward. But she didn't want to come to church anymore, but she likes us and feels like she connects with us...so she's changed her mind and said that if she isn't with her dad on the weekends, she'll come. Yea! The part member family we are teaching. Well, the less active wife and the 13 year old son came to sacrament yesterday! Yea! It was the first time that the wife had been to church in about 13ish years! And she said she enjoyed it. That was exciting. The husband is still being a bum. He sits in the lessons and listens. I think his hold up is he's afraid of not keeping commitments. He knows himself and knows that he's weak and that he usually breaks promises/commitments...and would also break a covenant. Hm...I hope we can help him. Those were actually the only investigators we were actually able to meet with this week, sadly. But we have a busy week ahead of us. We meet more of our less actives this last week. We are teaching our recent convert the new member lessons. I love her and her husband. They are so sweet. Almost like grandparents to me. They feed us lunch when we go over there. And Brother Brockbank loves his Oreos, but he is kind and shares his cookies with us. :) Anyways, what else... Oh! We had Elder Cardon from the 70 come speak to us at half mission conference. I got to see lots of old dear faces there as well. But it was good. They talked a lot about recognizing the Holy Ghost and relying on the spirit. Two things that I wrote down and liked: "Our challenges are here to bless our lives. Hold on to God and He will strengthen you through them." It was good. Really good. And then all the missionaries that are departing the next 2 transfers gave their departing testimonies. It was actually really really weird. Since I knew most of them a majority of my mission... One of them, Sister Hurtado, she came out into the field with me. She gave hers too since she has been out longer than me, cause of the MTC (she had to learn English), so she goes home a transfer before me. So weird. Anyway. That's life. It keeps moving on whether we're ready or not. So scout motto: Be prepared. Anyways, it was a good conference. And then that night we attended a baptism in Sister Simons old ward. Oh, so funny story, well not really, but so there's a less active lady we started teaching...teaching's not the right word though. She asks questions, but isn't really looking for an answer...because she already has her view point. But she doesn't want us to give up on her. She said that one day her brick wall may fall. Haha, so it will be interesting working with her. Yep. I guess that's pretty much the excitement here. I love you all bunches and bunches and bunches and bunches. Be happy. And if you're not, remember that I love you and then you can be happy, right? :) Well, have a wonderful week. Love you all bunches.

This weekend was great! Betty was baptized and recieved the gift of the Holy Ghost! It was such a wonderful, spiritual experience for her. She could definitley feel the spirit, especially when she received the Holy Ghost. She was crying and later mentioned how it was a very emotional, touching event. She is doing great. It was wonderful. I spoke about baptism at the baptism service. And Sister Bowers and Sister Crossley came down from Gridley - Sister Bowers gave the talk about the Holy Ghost. It was a great turn out. There were a lot of people there - a lot of missionaries too. So some of the missionaries were standing in the back. It was a great turn out. Love it! We had a lesson with our part member family, where we taught them the gospel of Jesus Christ. The husband....he believes that when he was born out of the womb- that was his baptism. He doesn't believe it is necessary to be baptized "again". We shared a lot of different scriptures about baptism and left him with more to read. Hopefully he'll read them & his last reading assignment. He has a tendancy to take a month until he accomplishes assignments. We taught another of our investigators the gospel of Jesus Christ. He believes everything, expect for the fact about priesthood authority. He believes that other churchs have it as well. And he's already been baptized. So...we're going to be talking about the priesthood and the apostacy this week. Other than that he likes everything he's been learning. And we need to get him to come out to church. We picked up a new investigator last night. It's a part member family. The wife is less active. The husband is Catholic. We discussed how the Book of Mormon and the gospel blesses families lives. Sister Simons told him how she use to be Catholic and how it always seemed to be missing things - like being with your family forever. But it seems that Ed's family has adopted different beliefs then the Catholic's because he said they believe in that too. It was very interesting. But he was willing to set up a return appointment with us. And said he would try to give the Book of Mormon a chance again and that he would pray about it. We taught a lot of other lessons this week. It really helps having a convert companion. Through her conversion story we are able to share about other principles of the gospel. It's a great way to get people interested. We did service for some less actives of ours. His son just died. So we helped by cutting up fruit for the funeral. He came to church on Sunday. I love seeing how much he sees that he needs the church in his life. The gopsel truly does change and affect lives. I love it so much! It's such a wonderful gift we have. It brings so much peace and happiness into our lives! That's why I love sharing it with others. It's sad when people reject it, but everyone has their own agency. Well, I love you all bunches and bunches!!!!!!! Have a wonderful week!!!! :D Love, Sister Kristi Walston

August 6, 2012

How are all of you doing? I'm fine....expect for this weekend I did have a head cold or something...maybe a little fever....stuffy nose...but I feel much better today. Much better. So guess what?!? We have a baptism this weekend!!! Yea!!! We're excited. She is ready. Anyone want to come? Just kidding. Anyways, she's ready. Ready as ready. So one of these days I'll send you pictures. What else....? Oh, you might want to know about my new companion eh? Sister Simons is from Lexington, Kentucky. She has been a member of the church for 3 years. She's been out since April/May. So yep. That's Sister Simons. Our other investigator who's getting baptized in November - we taught her all of the commandments this week. And it was our last lesson with her until right before her baptism. Sad. But she and her husband are going to France for about 3 weeks in September and she has to get ready for that. And she also has doctor appointments to take care of. But I'm not worried about her. She is practically a member, she's just missing the covenant of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. We did some service this week. Singing to old people with our district. And helping out some members with a yard sale. It was good. Good to do service. Yesterday evening was awesome. We didn't know what to do our last 30 minutes - so we went tracting and we were able to teach 2 others with knocking on 2 doors. We were able to testify to them how the gospel of Jesus Christ can help our lives. I love the Gospel! It is such a blessing to our lives. Such a blessing. So much peace and comfort come from it - which comes from living the gospel - living God's commandments - making it part of who we are. Love it. Someone the other day told us they were impressed how we actually live what we believe. It is so important to live what we believe. Otherwise, all is for naught. If we live it, we are truly "taking upon ourselves Christ's name." If we are children of Christ, heirs of His kingdom, we will live what we believe - we will do it. Well, I love you all bunches and bunches! You are all the bestest! Love, Sister Kristi Walston