We can't teach anyone of the Gospel, the Spirit has to do it.

Some member was telling me about the blue bonnets being out in Texas this week, as we were standing out in the snow. Cruel eh? Haha actually SPRING is FINALLY here, ask it doesn't go much below 0 degrees during the day, so I can't complain much about the cold. Here's hoping we've had our last snow!

 Leadership was so good, turns out it was only for trainers/trainees and the zone leaders, and we just went over all the basics of the mission that the babies may not have heard- the standards of excellence, the steps to raise the bar we focus on, ect. It was a really good refresher and good to see all the new missionaries get really excited about the stuff that isn't new to me anymore-good rekindling of faith about it all. Plus, anytime I get together with Svesta Williams and Le Cas (Sisters Williams and Casner) I'm happy :) AND Sister Wester was there, it was a happy little reunion party!

 Exchanges was really fun, I went to Kitchener with Sister Monthe from Leon, France. She's a convert of 5 years and is hilarious, she's Sister Casner's last companion. Cutie. Everytime I go to Kitchener it reminds me of the hilarious joke God keeps playing on me of putting me in little towns when I LOVE bigger cities haha. The highlight was probably teaching 2 Muslim brothers, which was actually just one of them trying to convert us to Islasm. The other brother seemed really sincere though, he just listened to us and his brother and then explained what he had read in the Book of Mormon since their last visit. Testimony builder of why we have to teach and get answers from the Spirit- the kid had a wonderful scientific explanation of why he was right, but it didn't mean a thing to us. Likewise any answers to his questions we gave didn't change his mind one bit. We can't teach anyone of the Gospel, the Spirit has to do it and if the Spirit isn't present there's no point in being there. Thankfully Sister Monthe and the member we had with us were really good at bringing everytihng back to the need to pray to know if it's true or it could have been a huge bash, but it was actually pretty good all things considered.

 Tina is doing SO GOOD, we taght her twice this week and also taught her mom twice! Turns out her mom used to meet with missionaries years ago but got caught up on Jospeh Smith. So we answered all her questions and she wants to meet again. Too bad she lives in Smith Falls! Still, it was awesome. Future Celestial Family.

WE GOT A CAR THIS WEEK! Huzzah! Life is infinitely easier now :) I also got the best news ever this week....WE GET TO GO TO THE TEMPLE ON SATURDAY!!!! SO EXCITED!!!! Last transfer Brantford wasn't invited, we were out of the boundaries, but they've JUST changed it because there are so many new areas. AND WE GET TO GO!!!! I didn't realized how much I've missed they temple until they told us that. I would laugh last transfer because one of Sister Sorensen's hobbies was plotting ways to get permission ("What if I have a big enough break down?" You can't fake a break down Sister. "What if we go 2 hours early on transfer day?" President won't approve that. "What if we go on a p-day and a member drives us?" It's closed on Mondays. "DANG IT!") but now we're probably equally excited, I'm craving the temple.

Whelp just found out we're probably going to Cambridge for p-day, so gotta go write the prez. Love ya! Have a grand week!

Time to go find some more of those prepared people!

Bonjour-

So one of my investigators from last transfer was baptized this week! Paul Henhawk, he's from a part-member family. His wife was just glowing the whole time and he had the biggest grin when he came up. Made me all warm and fuzzy,  even though I haven't been the one teaching him.  I'm glad I got to be at the baptism. All 4 of us sisters sang at the baptism, and not gonna lie it was crazy good, I don't think any of us are perfect singers on our own but it was a dang good combination.  Time to go find some more of those prepared people! I got a blessing at the start of this transfer where I was told that there were still people I was meant to find, so I plan to see more baptisms soon.

We started teaching a new investigator, Harvey. He married a member about a year ago. He's a trucker so he's hardly ever around, so it'll be a slow process, but we shared the plan of salvation with him and his wife and he said he'd thought about what happens after this life and has questions like everyone else. We're seeing him again next month, and his wife afterwards was like "Yeah he's always gone now, so it'll be hard, but he retires in 2 years so....." Hahaha we're all scheming!

This week we met Wayne Gretzky's dad! Wayne Gretzky is a big shot hockey player who's from Brantford and his dad still lives here, and apparently loves the missionaries and will give him free stuff and get him autographs so they "accidentally" tract into him every so often. Ever since hearing this Sister Von Niederhausern, a big hockey fan, has wanted to go find him. But then one day we were walking down a street to a member's home and this man was outside and waved us over and started giving us free hockey calendars. He gave us 5 and was disappointed we wouldn't take more. We tried to talk to him but he was interested, so we thanked him for the calendars and carried on. After the appointment with the member Sister Von Niederhausern asked her if she knew Wayne Gretzky's dad's address and she looked all surprised and told us it was the man that gave us the calendars. Hahaha we we accidentally found him, rather than "accidentally"! Sister Von Niederhausern still wants to go back for a picture though.

This upcoming week is nuts. We have leadership training tomorrow, district meeting Friday, and exchanges Saturday- all in other cities. I'm going on exchanges with Sister Monthe, Sister Casner's last compaions who's from France. We also have 4 super solid referrals we're hopefully going to teach this week! So I'm really excited and ready to go.

Okay, gotta finish emails- this takes a lot longer now that I can actually email people! 

Love you, hope all continues to go well with the house! Catch you cats on the flip flop later!

Inspiration, not ignorance!

Hey-o!

Things continue to go well, those as usual not as I would have it go. But generally that works out best anyways.  For example, we're still sharing the car but S. Von Niederhausern and I also now have bus passes. One of the first time we used them we got on the bus and then our appointment called and cancelled. Instead of just getting off though we decided to just ride the bus full circle and talk to people, because I struggle at that turns out so I wanted to practice so we can start finding on the bus. SO I talked to this guy for a good 10 minutes and end up setting up an appointment with him. I was all happy, and thaen he asked where we were getting off. I told him out stop and he smiled and said "You're on the wrong bus." Turns out the buses don't just drive one route, everytime they go through the transit station they switch what bus they are. Fail. But we got a sweet contact so I'm going to call it inspiration, not ignorance!

We found 2 new investigators this week. One is this hilarious Danish woman who was really excited to meet a Jensen, she immediately asked if I was Dansih. I told her my dad lived there for 2 years and she was just tickled pink, she descibed where it was so I could ask if he lived there but I can't remember it at all. U-something. She loves everything we share, the hardest part will just be helping her undstand that she's not too old to do anything about it like she claims she is. The other is AWESOME, she's a member referal and she sat us down and told us "You're here because I want to be closer to God, so I want you to teach me about your beliefs and I want to read the Book of Mormon and pary about everything I learn, and then decide if I think it's true and should be baptized." Um, perfect. That's what we were going to tell YOU we wanted you to do! We're really excited about her, she didn't set a baptismal date but said she wants to read the whole Book of Mormon by May instead.

They changed the email rule! I can email anyone I want! HUZZAH! Email time just doubled haha.

I loved all the pictures I got emailed this week, looks like yall have been having a fun time!! And that's nuts the house is basically sold and gone, wowzers....Hope all goes well with the inspection! Make sure you email the office about the move, they're probably going to be planning flights and stuff soon.....

My address is:

15 Sympatica Cres. #412

Brantford, ON

N3T 1P6

Packages and letters are always welcome :) And it's never too late to send me new clothes. Never.

LOVE YALL!

A finding week

Dear family-

Good to hear you finally got the house up! Keep me posted about when it sells and when you find a house in Utah. 

Splitting the area has been nutty, sharing a car keeps things interesting haha the first couple of days all 4 of us lived in the house together, which was so much fun but so disorganized. We're now in our new apartment, we have matresses and dishes and that's it! I think we're supposed to get furniture this week.....

My new companion is Sister Von Niederhausern, which I'm so proud I can now pronounce and spell. My first couple of mdays a good chunk of my prayers were dedicated to asking for help saying her name and practicing lol she's from Logan Utah and went to USU to study social work as well! So we get along dang well! She's 20, and Sister Sorensen's companion Sister Wise is 19 and also from Utah. So our little quad is three 20 year olds from Utah and me hahaha! I keep finding out all of Sister Von Niederhausern's secret talents- she's a black belt in karate, a singer, plays piano, dances, and on and on. She may be one of the coolest people I know.

I don't know what to email about....I feel like my emails get progressively worse each week.

All of our investigators went to the south end, so it's mostly been a finding week. It's fun finding with a new missionary because we'll do something for a while and then she'll say "So...have you ever actually had any success doing this?" So I get to tell her all my mission stories to try to build her faith in finding. I love it.

This week at church was really rewarding, we have 5 less actives we've been working with come out and 2 of my investigators that are now in the south end. Now we just got to get some of our own people to bring.

I can't believe it's spring break. We have had so much nasty wet slushy snow this week. Jealous!

Yesterday in studies I found something that blew my mind- go read 2 Nephi 1:23-25. Don't look at the context of the verses, just read those and think about who "your brother" would be symbolic of. Then read 28-29 with that mind set as well. Cool eh? I love the Book of Mormon, I will never get over how much it teaches about Christ.

Whelp.....I think that's pretty much my whole life right now. Love to all!

Pictures of the week:

Check out my sweet family tree: 

my 4 babies, 5 out of my 7 grandbabies, and my great grandbaby

Sister Von Niederhausern and I

 Me and the sisters in front of the house