On the verge of some serious spiritual growth

Hey all! Okay to get started, here's my mail update....

-Mom, i got the package from the distribution center, THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I never ever thought I would get so excited about general conference cds lol and I love the primary book, muchos gracias

-Megan Hurst, I am so so sorry It's taken me so very very long to respond to you, I feel so bad! But thank you for forgiving me and writing again anyways. And Shannon- about time you wrote me. HAHAHA just kidding, thank you two so much for the cd letter, I freaked out when I heard yalls voices, I love it. It will probably take a while to respond because I have so much to say, but I promise to answer and PLEASE keep sending them occasionally!

So this week was way too spiritual, I told Sister Casner I must be on the verge of some serious spiritual growth because I feel like I'm at one extreme or the other all the time. She told me it fit right along with something our mission president's wife told us about Jacob 5 at zone conference-sometimes we're being "dug about" by the Lord, and we feel that, but it's just part of how the Lord nourishes and grows his vineyard.

Sister exchange was super successful, we had an appointment every hour, it rocked. And I learned in Jui Jitsu how to throw grown men on the ground using 2 fingers, so what more can I ask for? Sister Williams wanted to move here, like everyone that ever comes through here she now feels jui jitsu is her life calling. Unfortunately, none of the people we taught are investigating, but it was a really good day and set an awesome note to go to zone conference on.

Speaking of zone conference- AMAZING!!!! So fantastic. Favorite quote from President Scott: he was talking about how ever since we set the goal for 65 baptisms in June missionaries have been writing him about all the opposition their investigators are suddenly facing and he told us "Elders and sisters, the adversary is here- Thank goodness! If he was messing around in Connecticut, I'd be insulted. As our efforts increase, so will his, until eventually he'll have to give up and move on to Connecticut, and then we'll see the work surge forward." So true! We had a Brother Fuller speak to us, a former area 70 member, and at the end he left a blessing on us and the mission, it was super powerful. You could feel the spirit fill the room as a special witness of Christ blessed us with success! Another favorite quote from one of the Assistants, Elder Henderson: "If you want more faith, be obedient. There is no substitute. Sitting around reading scriptures all day will never get you as close to God as going out and obediently working." President Scott has us take notes during meetings by making 3 columns labeled "Start," "Stop," and "Learned" to help us organize our thoughts about what we get out of it, and my start column was SO long! So I've got lots to think about and do the upcoming weeks.

So Sister Casner and I are on a roll now, we love it! We just gotta find the people Heavenly Father has gotten us all pumped up for!

We're excited for Josh to get baptized on Sunday, it'll be so weird since we won't have seen him for 2 weeks. But we're so glad to be a part of getting our 65 baptisms in June!

Last cool story, I dunno if I told you about or if you heard about Elder Johnson...He was hit by a car in January I believe, in Toronto. So he's been in the hospital recovering ever since, it's been an incredible miracle because doctors keep telling his family things he'll never recover and then he does, like vision in one eye and hearing in one ear. And pretty much everything they were worried he'd have to relearn came back remarkably fast! So as part of his rehab, the doctors wanted him to do as much as possible in his usual routine before the accident, so he practiced teaching the gospel to his therapists. In our email today President told us one of them has started going to church with their family now and is investigating- how amazing are the ways Heavenly Father is able to spread his gospel? He was in a coma a few months ago, and he's still doing more missionary work than me lol! Amazing story, I don't know if there's anything online about him but you should look it up.

Love you! Have a great week! Thanks for the France pictures!

It's p-day, p-day!

Hello all!

Letters this week were pretty hilarious, I quite enjoyed them. For some reason it made me picture mom another planet, trying to send little messages through space to me :) Anyways, thanks to all my emailers!

Also, before i forget, HAPPY EARLY FATHER'S DAY DAD!

This was an exciting week for Bowmanville. They love "fests" here, there was a maple fest last month and this month's was a rib fest! It was on all weekend, Sister Casner and I debated going but decided a crowd of hungry people lookin for some ribs was not the best spot to try to talk to people. Sister Casner took it especially hard though, she said she never thought she'd miss a rib fest and I had to concur. At first we thought it was a rodeo, especially because they were flying Texas and American flags.

So one night this week we dropped by a member's home and talked with the wife for a long time. (Found out she served a mission in Denmark Dad!) She was telling us about some things her family had been going through the past few years, and then started telling us how she was starting a nursing program and it actually worked out really well because of all the hard things she had just been telling us about, it was really cool. She said "I was just telling my husband the other night it was a total Jacob moment!" Then she talked about how Jacob in the Bible went and worked for 7 years as a goat herder so he could marry Rachel, and ended up marrying Leah instead. So he could have been angry and refused to work anymore and left feeling bitter because he was supposed to be this chosen man of God, but instead her spends another 7 years working with goats to marry Rachel. During these 14 years he learns all about how to breed goats and cattle- with Rachel's father knows nothing about, because he never works with the animals. So When Jacob ready to leave he makes a deal that he can take all the brown spotted goats and cattle. He then breeds them so the majority of the herd is spotted, and so all the strongest are spotted. So he leaves to go back to his home with 2 wives and their handmaidens, a huge herd of strong cattle and goats, totally wealthy and successful-prepared to become Israel. So she said she'd gone through all these things, an active family with 2 return missionaries who are supposed to be taken care of by the Lord but instead they were really struggling. But what she thought was just a 14 year sentence to work was actually an opportunity to learn to breed spotted goats. I loved it, you see that all the time in missionary work! You struggle or have hard times, and you can get caught up thinking about how the Lord is supposed to be helping you and instead you're being abandoned....OR you can look at what you're learning and what the Lord is preparing, and eventually you look back and see that if it wasn't for those times you wouldn't be the missionary you are or teaching the people you're teaching. The Lord is always in control, we just need to be open to His lesson.

This is going to be a pretty rocking week! We're having another Sister's exchange, this time I'm staying in Bowmanville and Sister Casner is going to Peterborough. I told her it's way more terrifying staying because I feel like I have to know what to do the whole day, whereas last time when I went to Peterborough I just followed Sister Sutton around and had fun. But it'll be really fun, I'll work with Sister Williams who I don't know at all, so it'll be an adventure! We also have zone conference, and I'm finally out long enough that when i go to zone conference I'm expecting to see alot of missionaries I know so that's a fun feeling.

Josh, the 11 year old we're teaching, is in another city for the next 2 months because they're in the process of moving. So our zone leaders are actually going to teach him the next 2 weeks, but then he'll be baptized in Bowmanville on the 24th. So it's pretty weird not actually seeing him until then but still having him progress. Kathleen has put lessons on hold for a few weeks too because her family is going through some stuff, but she's still interested and studying on her own so it'll work out. We're finally going to meet with Lana again this week, so we're really excited about her!

Other than that, all's quite on the Canadian front. Glad your French vacation was awesome and hope you all missed me TONS :) have a fun week! Love you!

This was an INTERESTING week

Dear Fam,

Congrats to Erin for living the dream of hitch hiking across the country! (Or the city, whatever.) Hope you made some new best friends :) I guess you're all in France now? Hope you're having so much fun! I expect hundreds of pictures soon, between graduation and vacation.

Don't you love running into random members of the church that you have vague connections with? Every time I meet someone from the Owen Sound area or Texas, or who has any connection at all with either place, or with USU, I get way more excited than I should.

This was an INTERESTING week, haha. We taught alot of on the spot lessons, which was really cool, but we aren't teaching any of those people yet. One man we dropped by at 8:30 and accidentally woke up, so he said we had to help him wash dishes to make up for it (that was a first!). Afterwards we sat down and he asked what our message was to people like him who were already firm Christians, so we had an awesome discussion about the priesthood and how we need to be baptized with Christ's authority. Unfortunately, in the end he said he wasn't interested enough to make time to learn more right now, but he's so close to being prepared! Hopefully in the future missionaries will be able to teach him. Another woman, Lana, said she has some doctors appointments for tests this week so next week we can come over and teach her husband and her, so we're excited about that. She's started reading the Book of Mormon and really likes it. Her only concern is she's been baptized before and isn't sure if it would be right for her to be baptized again so she said she wanted to study what the bible says about it and pray about it. Sounds good to us!

I should actually tell you the full story with Lana- Sister Casner and I dropped by a less active member who wasn't home, so walking back to our car we saw one of her neighbors (Lana) and talked to her. Sister Casner asked if she was interested and she said no, so I got ready to give her a card to mormon.org and leave. Then Sister Casner asked if she wanted a Book of Mormon, and Lana said no. So Sister Casner asked if she was sure, and she said yes no thank you. THEN Sister Casner said "Well you could just take one and have it in case you ever want it." I wanted to die a little bit, I was about to grab her arm and drag her away so she'd stop harassing this poor woman, when finally Lana caved and took it. She immediately opened it, read a few verses, and said she liked it. So she flipped to another page and read some more and said she liked that too and it sounded like Psalms. So the Sister Casner and I started showing her some verses and chapters to read, and got her information to drop by and visit her sometime. We left and I asked Sister Casner why she kept offering it to her when she kept saying no, and Sister Casner looked surprised and said "Was she saying no? Oh, I guess technically she did....I really just kept hearing that she wanted one." I laughed, told her she was crazy, and figured maaayyyybe we'd drop by Lana once, but I knew she wasn't interested. But every day Sister Casner would asked when I wanted to visit Lana, so after like a week I told her I didn't want to but if she wanted to we could. So we tried a few times, and she was never home, though we finally were told when to come back and she'd be there. Then we dropped by the less active again that we were originally visiting when we met her, and Lana was outside. So she waved us over, said she had just been thinking how she wasn't going to be there tonight so she'd miss us and she wished she knew our number to let us know, and then we walked by. So we talked her about the restoration through Joseph Smith and we're going to see her again in 2 weeks.

So basically, this is the pattern with Sister Casner and I- if I feel good about someone and really want to see them, they're going to drop us. If she feels really good about someone, they're going to be interested. It's really rude. I told her one day "Your faith runs this companionship! I'm just grunt power, I decided if we're going to work, and you decide what's going to work." She said "I don't think that's true, I think that's God...BUT I am also here." It was so funny.

But despite our amazing lessons not leading to return appointments, our week was great! We are teaching 2 new people, a couple that was a member referral. Funny though, the member that referred them and brought us to meet and teach them is NOT their son, who is also a member of the ward. So that will be interesting. They said they "don't know if they'll do the whole baptism thing", but they invited us to come back and share more after we taught them the plan of salvation. They really liked what we taught about how there isn't just heaven and hell and you're stuck their for eternity. He especially liked that we teach that in the spirit world before we're resurrected people have the chance to progress from prison to paradise. It made me really grateful for the understanding I have of the Atonement, and how far reaching it really is.

Kathy was finally confirmed this week! We were really worried she wouldn't make it because of some family things, but she was and she was absolutely glowing when she was given the Holy Ghost. Kathleen and Josh are still working towards their baptismal dates, though Josh pushed his back because his uncle that is baptizing him will be out of town. But he's still doing great, and he's so fun to teach that the selfish part of me is glad we'll teach him for 2 weeks longer. (I may be a terrible person....)

I think my emails get longer every week here, whoops. But I will go now, love you all! Have a fantastic French vacation! Be safe, stay healthy, love you all!

Sister Casner's astute observations for the week:

"You know why you want to go to an art museum right now? Because we're supposed to be concentrating right now and we're laughing, and whenever you go to art museum you end up cracking up. There's always that one painting...." (When I told her during weekly planning I had a weird urge to be in the Houston Fine Arts Museum)

"You know why I laugh at everything you say? Because in our heart of hearts, I'm a little girl and you're a little boy." (When I told her I feel like 65% of things I say she laughs at when 90% of the population would tell me not to say that in public.)

Things are still fantastic here in Bowmanville.

First of all, I didn't forget memorial day because I'm Canadian. I forgot memorial day because I always forget memorial day. I was a terrible American even before I was Canadian!

Glad to hear everyone's keeping busy and out of trouble. I'm looking forward to graduation pics Erin! Before I forget Mom, I have been putting the ensigns you sent me to good use so thank you. One of our former investigators had surgery so we dropped by to see how she was, and she said she was going crazy just reading newspaper ads because she was bored. So we brought her some a few ensigns to read, it was perfect. She appreciated them a lot, and she came back to church this weekend for the first time in months so hopefully the Spirit is touching her and helping her to be ready to learn again.

Sorry to hear about Brother Reeves, Sister Reeves is definitely in my prayers.

Glad to hear you had a cool sacrament meeting! Tell Erin I'm making her take me to the hospital every single time and I'm waiting till the last possible second ;) Buuuuuut I do have to claim my Sunday was better, we had a country wide stake conference broadcast this weekend from Salt Lake. Elder Walker of the 70, Sister Stephens from the General RS Presidency, Elder Christofferson, and President Packer spoke. Basically, the themes were: Focus on the temple, focus on Christ, focus on service, and focus on the Spirit. I loved that, because if you're really doing any of those things you'll be doing all of them! One of my favorite quote was from Elder Christofferson, he said "Service is not something we endure so that we can achieve the celestial kingdom, but rather service is the very fiber of an exalted life." Fits right with what you were saying mom, about not becoming too busy to remember to serve those around you. We talked with someone this week who said there's a lot you have to do in the church and that it's too hard and too much of a commitment. Afterwards we were talking about how the church seems hard if it's something that separate from you, but when the gospel is part of your life and part of you it's natural and stops being a long list of things you can and can't do, and just becomes life. Service so often is something we have to make time for and can seem to big of a sacrifice, but when it's who we are and what we do, it stops being something we have to find time to do and we naturally do service. And when we have a service centered life, we have a Christ based, temple centered, Spirit filled life. I love that!

Things are still fantastic here in Bowmanville. Sister Casner and I are a LOT better, after a few days our drugs started really kicking in. Sister Casner told me "I feel so weird in the morning," so I asked if she was sick and she said "No, that's the thing. I have energy to get out of bed, it's the weirdest feeling!" So we're glad to be working a full 7 days a week again. Kathleen and Josh are doing awesome, both are really excited about being baptized in a few weeks. And Kathy is being confirmed this coming Sunday- for several unexpected reasons we keep postponing it a week, but we're excited she'll finally actually be confirmed. I may start pushing for Saturday baptisms after this so we don't have to wait so long for the confirmation in church, the anticipation is a little much.

The weather has been AMAZING, it's been high 20s all week. Sister Casner has been dying in the humidity, but it finally feels about how it feels February/March in Texas so I'm stoked. I'm going to enjoy the next 3 months sooooo much!

That's pretty much my entire life right now. Love you all!

Good day!

Good day!

Sorry you didn't know about Victoria Day. Canada has SO many holidays, and the celebrate ALL of the on Monday. America probably has just as many with things like president's day and such, but everything in Canada shuts down for every single holiday so it's alot more noticeable. Best moment of Victoria Day- we were at a member's house, and they were explaining what the holiday was for, and I asked Sister Casner if she'd noticed how patriotically I had dressed that day with my red skirt and white top. She said "What? I don't see any blue..." The Canadians were not pleased with that!

So this weekend was really exciting! First of all, no idea if I told you about this but as a mission we're trying to have 65 baptisms in the month of June. Last year when the missions combined both missions worked super hard to have the best month ever right before they joined so the new mission would start off with a high, and together they had 62 in the month of June. So we've been praying and working for 65 this year. So this week, as the first week of the new transfer we had a mission wide conference call because June is this transfer so it involved all the missionaries that would be a part of that goal. It was crazy, the first few times sounded like signs or something with alien noises coming over the phones, but they finally got everyone muted and we had a really powerful talk about working to achieve it. President Scott quote Elder Eyring's talk about the danger of the word someday, because what it really means is not this day. he talked about how
 someday a group of missionaries would have 65 baptisms in this mission so it's not a question of if it's achievable- it's a question of when, and if we're going to stand on the sidelines or step up and be involved in achieving something great. You can predict how many people will be baptized based off of the number of baptismal dates that have been set as goals at the end of the month of May, so to have 65 baptisms in June we need 90 people set with a date when May ends. So with 180 missionaries here this transfer, exactly 90 companionships, everyone needs to set a date- which works out really cool!

So we've been determined to not be on the sidelines and to have a baptism in June, and this weekend has been really exciting! We were able to set a baptism date for June with 2 people this week! Josh is 11, he's wanted to join for years but just got permission. He is the best, he asked if we could teach him Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and baptize him Thursday- I wish everyone I taught was that determined! But his aunt told him he better wait till June 10. We also taught Kathleen, who we actually taught our first Sunday in this area and is really interested, but because she's in a boundary grey area for the missionaries we weren't sure if we'd be able to teach her. Then she had health problems, then her family had a crisis- so a month later we were able to actually teach her again! She's so amazing, she has SUCH serious intent. Her friend who introduced us is a member and she's trying so hard to not push her that she didn't even realize that Kathleen had
 tried to tell her earlier that week she wanted to be baptized so she was shocked when we committed her to June 17 and Kathleen said yes. It was way fun.

I love you story about Dad's eloquence. Sister Casner and I have been joking this week about that actually- there's this quote from Brigham Young about how a man with eloquence can't teach the gospel as powerfully as a man who humbly bears his honest testimony, and there's a doctrine and covenants clip of him saying that quote and he says it SO eloquently and dramatically, the irony is hilarious! So basically, what I got from your story is that dad is Brigham young. Love it! Thank you for lining up your life with our inside jokes.

Sounds like everyone has some pretty cool summers planned! Hopefully EFY works out for more than 1 week Mel, that would be sweet if you and Joe get to work together! Erin did you ever hear back from DB about a job? I guess y'all haven't gone to France yet, which is disappointed because I had multiple dreams about France this week- in one of them I just walked up the stairs of the Eiffel tower for hours with Dad and Joey, so I was hoping you guys were doing that the same day I dreamed it. Unfortunately, I guess my dreams continue to be nonprophetic. Lame. Sorry you have to work Mom, but I'm glad you can get the hours you want to! I told a girl this week my mom works for an airline and so we fly for a discount and she looked at her mom all upset and said "When are you getting that job?" So thanks for continuing to have the sweetest job in the world!

Btw, I saw a doctor this weekend- Sister Casner and I drove to Oshawa to meet with a member who's retired. She was prescribed an inhaler with a steroid in it and I was put on a stronger antacid, and both given strict orders to see him in 2 weeks. So hopefully we'll stop being the most sickly companionship in the mission! We spent 3 days inside last week, we were going stir crazy, so managing to still get 2 new investigators with baptismal dates was an EXTRA tender mercy of the Lord.

Dang, long letter, and I probably have told you like half of this already lol oh well! Love y'all bunches, talk to ya in a week!

Ouch Charlie!

Opps, I did it again and didn't get a ltter to Rachel before she wrote on her p-day.  In my defence, I was told earlier last week that Monday, may 14 was a holiday to celebrate the Queen's birthday and nto to expect an email until Tuesday.  But when I sat down to write to Rachel on Monday, I discovered that she had already written and now thought we just didn't write because we had spoken to her the night before.  Made this mama sad!  Who knew you couldn't trust the office elders when it came to Canadian holidays? ~Rachel's Mom

Oh, that after phone call day burn when no one writes me an email...... I tried to put it off by sending pictures in hope I'd get a late one, but alas!

But that's cool, because I have lots of things I didn't tell you yesterday that I can write about.

Like how Kathy's baptism was almost cancelled! Sister Casner and I got to the chapel at 8 for ward council but turns out it was canceled, so we were like that's okay we'll just go clean the font. And that's when we found out the font was clogged because our building is under construction for the expansion and they had switched the septic tanks or something, so there's like 3 inches of dirty water in the font and the drain was unplugged. So we called some people and tried plunging it and nothing was working, and everyone kept saying we could either go to Coburg (which wouldn't work because it was mother's day so no one would want to go and Kathy doesn't drive so we wouldn't be able to get here there) or move it to another week, which broke our hearts. Finally Sister Casner asked someone why we couldn't just bail the water out- so we spent half an hour bail out the water with small bathroom trash cans and a dust pan and then mopping the font. It was kind of hilarious once we weren't terrified it was going to be postponed. Then the baptism was amazing, the spirit was so so strong! Although I kept having random moments of panic where I was convinced Kathy was about to change her mind and leave and never speak to us again, up until even AFTER she was baptized! It took two tries and I was thinking, ahhh she's embarrassed, we warned her it might happen but she's going to hate us- and then she turned around and came out of the font just beaming and I was like what is wrong with me?? Chillax Sister Jensen! Sister Casner laughed so hard when I told her about it, hopefully I'm not that paranoid every time someone's baptized.

Oh, btw, I'm not transferred! 6 more weeks in B-ville! Which means I get to teach this amazing boy, Josh. He's 11 years old and lives with his aunt and uncle, who are members. He wants so bad to learn about the church but his mom won't let him so he just listens through cracks in doors when missionaries and home teachers and such are over. He does go to church, but he's been begging his parents to be baptized and they keep saying no- I know, so so sad! BUT this week he officially got permission from his mom to be baptized! We saw him and he immediately came and told us and asked when he can start the lessons, so cute. So i think next week we're going to start teaching him. He's going to be our miracle this transfer!

Sister Casner was so sad she didn't get to talk to you guys more, it's actually kind of hilarious- she said that when the member who's house we were at asked her to come eat dessert while we were talking she felt like half of her phone call was stolen away, she keeps asking me what I told y'all about her haha.

Yeah, that's about it. It was awesome to see your faces yesterday! Hope you have a good week! Love you!

Pictures of the week:  Kathy's Baptism

Kathy's program

Me, trying to plunge the font

The bugs we scooped out of the font

- the centipede was my least favorite, sister casner's was the spider that was still alive!

I want to be a Harvester!

Thank you for that story mom, I love hearing about people who finally make it! My companions have been laughing at me because I told them I hate being a seed planter- I want to be a harvester and see results, which I realize that probably means everyone I teach will take 20 years to join because I need to learn patience. So it's inspiring to hear when that happens to people! We went over to a member's home and she told us about the best conversion story ever- seriously, it's so good that President Monson wrote it in one of his books "Pathways to Perfection", and we were told it at the MTC, but she gave us way juicer details! So for 20 years they had a neighbor who kept sending missionaries to their house over and over again, and he told them everytime no way not interested. So one time he sent them off with some rude comment about how they can't tell him Jospeh Smith was a prophet and slammed the door. They started walking off, and one of the missionaries stopped and said they needed to go back and bear their testimony. So they do and then leave, and her dad was left with the words ringing in his ears and he couldn't sleep that night thinking about it. About a week later the whole family was baptized. So I agree- never ever ever ever ever ever give up. Winston Churchill said that. I think. (Name that movie.)

Glad Joe made it home alright, now you can all sit around and wait for me to call you on Sunday! I think I'm going to end up calling at 6:30, 5:30 your time, but it's possible it will be an hour earlier- if it is I'll call the house phone before hand and tell you to get on skype. Hopefully I remember all the log in information.... So Sunday will be crazy, because on Sunday Kathy is being baptized! She's so excited, it's awesome to see. But it's a little tricky because it's mother's day, which we didn't think about at all when we set that date but now we have to make sure people can actually stay for the baptism and do things and support her. But we know for sure we'll have priesthood holders to baptize and witness, so that's really all we need.  Btw, I stalked mormon.org and looked for all of you (President Scott has asked us to use the site more in our teaching, so we're asked to spend 30 minutes on it every week to get to know it better) and only found Melissa. So make profiles so I can stalk or! Or make it easier for me to find if you already have one.

I think that's about it. I guess if I forgot anything I was dying to tell you I can just say it on Sunday :) Love you all! Have a fantastic week!

--Oh, and we get transfer calls on Sunday. Crazy day! I can't believe anopther transfer has already gone by! Love you!