Merry Christmas!!!

What a week!! Being a missionary around Christmas time is the best thing ever :) I love teaching people about Christ. We taught a lot of lessons this past week which was such a miracle. We got a new investigator as well! I've seriously never been so busy on my mission! I LOVE IT! We went on 2 exchanges this past week, trying to fit them all in before the end of the transfer. One of our investigators dropped us a few weeks ago but we stopped by and started teaching her again. She told us that she doesn't want us to give up on her yet and that she still wants to be baptized. She was so happy to have us there and it was such an awesome experience. We had this crazy experience when we were teaching Barb. She looooooves her coffee like so much! But I promised her that she could quit the next day. Anyways the next day she went to go drink a cup and all the coffee in her cupboard was missing! She tore everything out but she could find no coffee even though she had just bought some. Miracles!! Also we met this man out on the street a few weeks ago. Like we litterally pulled over on the side of the road and jumped out at him. He's from mexico and is super nice. There was a Spanish baptism this past weekend and we invited him and he came! I love feeling the spirit even though I had no idea what they were saying! Anyways I'll keep this short because I get to talk to you tomorrow!! YAY! I'm so excited! Anways the gospel is amazing :) Thanks for everything you do :)

Love 

Sister M

Merry Christmas from Sarah!! 

Sister Doty, Sister Martin, and their District Leader Elder Shaw. 

Sarah cut 6 inches off of her hair!!

So this week was just crazy! Crazy cold! Monday and Tuesday we had the crazy blizzard and we weren't allowed to go out. The whole week was freezing cold. The coldest I saw was -36 Celsius with the windchill being -51. If missionaries are in a walking area they aren't allowed to go out but me and Sister Doty have a car so we've been out in the cold. Haha its such a strange experience breathing and feeling the inside of your mouth freeze. Also side note this whole week me and Sister Doty's hot water has been broken....so not only is it freezing outside but we have ice shooting out of our shower and so we've gotten really good at boiling our water in the morning to try and take a warm shower......hahaha our lives are hilarious.

We couldn't go on one of our exchanges this past week with some of the sisters because of the weather, I feel bad because we might not be able to go with them now since we're so busy with other exchanges the rest of the transfer. I love being busy though, I've never been busier on my mission. A lot of people cancelled this week because of the weather.......lame.....just because its freezing doesn't mean its the end of the world! Anyways........Wednesday was kind of a weird day since we had to catch up on P-day stuff like buying groceries since we weren't allowed to drive and get them on Monday. We also had to cram district meeting in and a bunch of other little errands. We did have a really good lesson with Jessica. She was getting super nervous about her baptism so we just tried to calm her down and reassure her that it was the right decision.  On Thursday we had this crazy intense lesson with one of our investigators, last week he texted us and told us he went online and read a bunch of things about Mormons online....stupid! I told him that we would love to answer his questions and concerns and told him to go to lds.org and mormon.org. Anyways I was freaking out right before the lesson because I don't know much about anti-mormon stuff so I went and said a prayer for help and the Spirit instantly came over me. I was very much reminded of the authority and power I have as a missionary. I'm not out here to argue with people but I'm here to testify of Christ and that he lives. Nobody can argue a pure testimony that has come by the power of the Holy Ghost. I was reminded of a scripture in Alma 4:19 "seeing no way that he might reclaim them save it were in bearing down in pure testimony against them." We went to the lesson and it was very good and he said that he wants us to continue to come over and teach him, its looking like it will be a slow process but as long as he's stepping closer to Christ thats all that matters. 

On Friday we woke up early went to i-hop with a couple of other missionaries that were headed to Calgary and then started the drive up. Luckily the roads weren't bad at all. MLC's were good and I'm always grateful to be able to go and see how the mission is doing and be able to council with other missionaries on how we can make the mission better. President is such an inspired man and I'm so grateful for everything he does for all of his missionaries. The drive back to Calgary wasn't bad either we just saw how cold it was and we decided to jump out of the car and feel the icy cold winds.....I have no idea why we did that......probably because me and Sister Doty are crazy and are so excited to be living in Canada. 

Saturday is a special day its the day we had a baptism! (Please sing that to the tune of that one primary song..thank you.) Anyways Jessica's baptism went so well. She was so excited and the spirit was so strong. Her husband gave an amazing talk on the Holy Ghost and its been equally as fun to see him grow in the gospel and return from inactivity. He came up to us after and said this is the reason your in Lethbridge right now, to teach my wife. I loved it. Such a great day, we had our Christmas party that night which was really fun as well. Lots of less-active and non-members came which was awesome! Jessica's confirmation was such a special experience on Sunday. She was filled with the spirit. I felt so very blessed that I've had the opportunity to teach her. 

So this week is a busy one as well! We have a ton of meetings tomorrow with President and then we're having a dinner with him with all the zones in Lethbridge. He's going to be giving us our Christmas packages! Yay I'm excited :) We also have 2 exchanges this week and a big church tour on Saturday. Hopefully it goes well, we have the whole stake involved. 

I hope you all had a good week! I love you all. Just remember it might be cold in Utah but it can always be colder :) Love you all!

Love

Sister M.

Count your blessings it's not -36 :) 

Jessica's baptism.

Blizzard Warning

Sometimes I forget I live in Alberta and that sometimes it gets really cold! This morning our mission president said all missionaries are not allowed to drive so me and Sister Doty bundled up and walked in -27 this morning just so I could send out this email to anyone who decides to read it hahahaha it better be good.

This week was awesome. On Monday we had dinner at our Bishops house and they invited a non-member over for dinner, we shared a little Christmas message and it was really good, at the beginning of the lesson she seemed a little standoffish to us but by the end she was so happy and we could tell her heart was softened to missionaries. Here in Lethbridge it can be pretty hard since almost everyone has heard about the church and most of it has been pretty negative things so its awesome when we can break the stereotypes. We had a long day Tuesday of district mtg and then doing service for a less-active lady in the ward...which by the way I have such a testimony of service. This lady never lets us into her home, she never wants us to share a message but we asked her if we could help her clean her home and she said yes. We went and cleaned for an hour and then asked if we could share a message with her and she kindly agreed. The spirit was so strong. Its amazing how service can soften someones heart. Also a lady in the ward called us and wanted us to go and read scriptures with her daughter who has cancer and is at home most of the time. She's in her teens and we had such a good time teaching her and reading from the Book of Mormon with her. The Book of Mormon truly does bring the spirit into our lives. It is a true book that was translated by the power of God. I have such a great love for that book. That night we had a lesson with our investigator Barb who wants to be baptized sometime within the next month. The lesson went amazing and its so great to see how the Lord has been preparing her for this step in her life. The work is moving forward and won't stop. The Lord truly is in charge and we just need to trust him.

We had zone conference on Wednesday and combined with the Lethbridge and Cardston Zones it was also my half way mark on my mission. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT??! I CAN'T. It was a great conference and it was a perfect way for me to reflect on the last 9 months and to start the next 9 months of my mission. I got up and bore my testimony and I was just overwhelmed with how much I love my mission. I love putting my name tag on every morning. I love being able to have so much time to study from the scriptures and to learn from the Spirit. I love seeing the change in other people. Its been a very good last 9 months and I hope the next 9 don't go as quickly. We went on exchanges with some Sisters on the Westside from Thursday to Friday and then right after that went on exchanges to Med Hat from Friday to Saturday....I pretty much didn't see Sister Doty for 3 days it was crazy. But I had a really good time in Med Hat with Sister Clegg.....all of these missionaries amaze me with their knowledge of the gospel and the strength of their testimonies. We went to a dinner appointment and a little girl who was 4 years old recited the first 9 articles of faith it was so cool! I can't wait to raise my little family in the gospel! 

We had 2 of our investigators at church yesterday which made us super happy. Our investigator Jessica who will be baptized this Saturday came and her husband who has been less active for a long time bore his testimony for the first time in 10 years the spirit was so strong. He talked about how when they got flooded out in High River they were so grateful for the missionaries who just stopped what they were doing to come and help with the flood. It was cool to see how that service is still affecting people. He also mentioned how appreciative he is for missionary work and how he's so grateful for me and Sister Doty for teaching his wife. He said that this is the reason me and Sister Doty are in Lethbridge to help his family. It was one of the most touching things I've ever heard. I feel awful that I doubt sometimes why Heavenly Father wants me in a certain area or why things don't go the way I want them to but we need to trust in the Lords plan, its better than we could ever imagine. 

So all in all things are awesome right now. We get to go up to Calgary this Friday and I'm super excited about it. Its going to be freezing all week so that should be fun :) I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I hope Sam had a great B-day as well and Mom I hope you have a great birthday this week!! I love you all!!

Love 

Sister M

Hey family!

So transfer week is always a little crazy...I don't know why. I'm still so grateful I wasn't transferred. Ha its so funny to think how much I missed my first area when I first came to Lethbridge and then Heavenly Father humbled me and now I love my area of Chinook. Its the best. I don't ever remember what I tell you so I'm sorry if I repeat myself. We got another set of sisters in our zone and they're spanish sisters! That means me ans Sister Doty have another companionship to go on exchanges with. We're now over 16 sisters and it makes me think this next transfer is going to be crazy with exhanges..MLC....Christmas....and hopefully some baptisms! I'm excited! We picked up our new investigator this week and she wants to be baptized before Christmas...I honestly don't know why all these miracles are happening right now. Sadly one of our investigators who was on date to be baptized dropped us this week.....sometimes bad things happen. Its ok though, I'm learning to rely on the Lord and when I say He's humbled me lately I mean it. I can't do this work without Him. Our other investigator Jessica is progressing really well and I feel very blessed every time I enter her home to teach her.

Recently an inactive lady just had a baby in our ward who was 3 months early. She reached out to the ward when she was in the hospital so we decided to stop by and see her. What a blessing that was. We started visiting with her and getting to know her a little better and then we decided to sing her a song, we sang Abide with Me; Tis Eventide  a very special spirit entered that sweet room. She was very grateful at the end and told us that was exactly what she needed. Her heart was very softened and I hoping this experience will help her on the road back to the gospel.

On Wednesday it was -29 with the wind chill hahahaha oh boy I felt bad for all the new missionaries that just flew in. This winter is going to be cold!!!

Me and Sister Doty this past week wrapped a bunch of Book of Mormons in Christmas wrapping paper and decided that every dinner appointment we go to we'll give a special lesson on Christ and then invite them to prayerfully select someone to give the Book of Mormon to this Christmas season. We had a couple of lessons with it this past weekend and the members loved it....who knew all you needed to do was wrap the book in wrapping paper and it will make them excited to do missionary work? Yay!

We had a great lesson with Jessica yesterday...she's the one preparing to be baptized on the 7th and it was awesome. She's always bearing her testimony of the the gospel and doesn't even realize it. She loves asking us questions and loves sharing her experiences with the Book of Mormon. I'm excited for her!

Well have an awesome Thanksgiving! I will be thinking of you eating yummy food! I'm so grateful for all of you.

Sam-thanks for being the best brother in the world. Keep being awesome.

Kate-thanks for being my best friend. Thanks for always emailing me :) 

Dad-I love you!! Thanks for always supporting me with everything.

Mom-Thanks for being such a great example to me.

I love you all!!

Love 

Sister Martin

What a week, what a week!! Being on a mission is seriously the best thing in the world. This week was awesome. Really hard but lots of blessings. On Tuesday it was just go go go. We had our last exchange of the transfer, I went over to the west side of Lethbridge and went on exchanges with Sister Hassan. The sisters over there are over a YSA ward and it was so fun to see the difference in missionary work with a YSA ward compared to a family ward. It was a lot of fun to do missionary work with people my age. We exchanged back late Wednesday afternoon and immediately got our stuff together and headed to Calgary!

I was honestly so excited to get up to Calgary and go back to my old area to see Andy and Kenora! They're doing really well and it was so nice to just visit and have a lesson with them. They're such a huge blessing in my life and they probably don't even realize it. Hopefully I see them again soon. Thursday we got up early and headed over to have our Mission Leadership Council with Elder Schwitzer. He gave a lot of great training on leadership and talked a lot about how as members of the church we need to stick the the basic doctrines of the gospel. Faith & Repentance. There is a reason both of them are the first two principles of the gospel. Study them and apply them to your life, it will bless you tremendously. The whole MLC was awesome and it was so fun to spend time with a General Authority. After me and Sister Doty went to Peters for lunch its a famous milkshake place in North Calgary and it was so yummy!! For the first time though me and Sister Doty wanted to get back to Lethbridge.....usually I just want to stay in Calgary forever but I just wanted to get back to Lethbridge and work hard. I finally love Lethbridge :) That night we had dinner with the sweetest lady she was baptized last January and is preparing to go to the temple in a couple of months! I love seeing people continuing to progress after baptism.

On Friday we had our mission tour and got to hear from Elder Schwitzer again. We had all the zones in the South come together... Med Hat... British Columbia.... Lethbridge... Cardston...etc it was so fun to see all the missionaries! We have a ton of them! We had a neat experience where Elder Schwitzer wanted to sit in and listen to me and Sister Doty teach. I thought I would be nervous at first but the spirit came over and we taught a really great lesson on the importance of church attendance. It was such a neat experience have Elder Schwitzer sit side by side with us listening to us teach. I loved it! He also said it was an amazing lesson and he was very grateful for the opportunity to sit in! It made me so happy.

On Saturday we got a crazy crazy storm. It was so icy and freezing outside! President made all missionaries in Lethbridge stay off the roads. Luckily me and Sister Doty had already left that morning to go to the church for a Relief Society activity so we were just stranded at the church for awhile. We had fun at the Relief Society activity and had fun spending time with the ladies in the ward then we just hung out and made a lot of phone calls and made appointments. It literally was so cold outside....and all the Canadians were telling us that it wasn't even bad and its just going to get worse! Hahaha oh my!

Sunday we got a bunch of referrals from the ward! This hasn't really happened yet so I was very happy. Missionary work is really starting to pick up here and I love it!! Later that night we got a chance to go to the Young Women in Excellence night Sunday night and it was so nice because we're developing such a great relationship with the young women in our ward. They're all amazing young girls. We also got a phone call from a lady saying her mother-in-law is ready to be baptized and wants to be taught! Oh my goodness! hahaha miracles are happening everyday. 

Also I'm not getting transferred! I'm staying here in Lethbridge another transfer. I get to have Christmas with Sister Doty and I'm so happy! I still feel like I have a lot of work to do here so I'm excited for this upcoming transfer! 

I love you family you're the best!!

Love

Sister Martin

Sister Martin and Sister Doty

Sister Doty, Sister Schwitzer, Elder Schwitzer and myself!

FAMILY. FRIENDS. PEOPLE.

Hello!!!! I love you all so much! Oh my goodness, there were so many times this week that I just wanted to call you not because I was home sick but because I wanted to just fill you in on all these amazing experiences I'm having. Emails don't even do justice. So I was still pretty sick at the beginning of the week but we were working hard finding more less-active members to teach in the ward. I don't know if I told you this before but there are over 600 people on our ward list and only around 150 come each week! Crazy! So much work to be done!!

On Tuesday a different zone invited Sister Doty and myself to come and do a training in their zone meeting so we drove over to the west side of Lethbridge and got to do some training and it was pretty fun. My fears of talking in front of people are slowly going away and its probably because I'm forced to do it every week! haha oh my goodness. We then by some miracle got in with a inactive lady who never lets people in and we had an amazing lesson on the Atonement. The atonement really is the center of everything, when we start to study and understand the atonement our desire to share the gospel will increase. Also we had a man call us and he wanted to meet with us, he's from Medicine Hat and he was actually good friends with Kel (the investigator that passed away) he's actually a recent convert and wanted to know how Kel was doing. We had an amazing lesson with him on the Plan of Salvation. Also the man got a hold of Kels family and will be able to do his work in the temple in a year from now. How amazing is this gospel? So wonderful.

We had 2 lessons with our investigators on Wednesday and both of them are progressing so well. Its interesting to see what draws both of them to the gospel. One is families and the other is repentance. Each person is different but the gospel is for everyone, I love it! Both of our investigators want to be baptized we just need to help them overcome some concerns and they'll be ready to go. Heavenly Father has blessed this area so much. Its so different than when I first got here and I feel so blessed to see the ward grow stronger and be a part of it. I was still feeling sick by Thursday and my Zone Leaders called and said they would lock me in my house if I didn't stay in and get rest....hahaha I just feel like the worst missionary ever if we're not out working. But they were right I needed some sleep. They also came over and gave me a blessing and lets just say the priesthood is awesome! I'm doing much better. We went on 2 exchanges this past weekend. One in Medicine Hat and one in West Lethbridge. I stayed in my area both times but the exchanges went really well. I went on one exchange with Sister Cornillez who is the sweetest nicest girl I've ever met. She's been out for 5 weeks now and she's from the Philippians. Sweetest person ever. I got to help her with her English and it was great :)

This week will be so much fun! We're headed to Calgary tomorrow....YAY! Elder Schwitzer of the 70 wants to have another mission leadership council so we'll be meeting with him Thursday morning and then we'll head back down to Lethbridge after that and on Friday we have another meeting with him and he might join me and Sister Doty for a lesson! I'm hoping it happens it would be such a wonderful experience. And then next week is transfers.....HOW DID THAT HAPPEN SO FAST! Oh my goodness. The mission is flying by. I'm coming up on my half way mark....oh my it makes me want to cry.

I love the gospel. I love my Savior and I love teaching people about those two things. I hope you all have a great week! Remember that I love you dearly and that I"m praying for you often!

Love 

Sister M.

Small villages in Canada 

Sister Cornillez and Sister Martin

Sarah and one of her investigators

Miracles do happen.

What an amazing week. I've seen so many tender mercies and miracles this past week which has strengthened my testimony of this amazing gospel. We've seen so many amazing things. I love it! On Monday night we taught a cute older couple, the husband struggles with his testimony of Jesus Christ so we've decided to teach him like an investigator so we taught the Restoration and the spirit was so strong in that little room. There truly is a power that comes with Joseph Smith and the first vision. We then went and taught our investigator Jessica and we read from the Book of Mormon from her and she loved it we committed her to read the next chapter and when we saw her the next time she had read 3 more chapters, she's just loving the Book of Mormon! We had a church tour with her so she could become more comfortable with the church building and she kept saying how much she was feeling the spirit!

On Tuesday night we went on exchanges and I went over to the East side of Lethbridge where the sisters are in a walking area. Hahahaha I just bundled as much clothing on as possible as we went out walking around to teach. We went over to a inactive members home and taught a lesson on prayer. I asked the lady when was the last time she prayed and got an answer to her prayer and she sat there and thought and then opened up about an experience she had with prayer when she was little. She got pretty emotional and then said "I guess God really does hear my prayers, I just need to keep on praying." It was great, we committed her to pray to her Father in Heaven and sit and listen. This is why I love going on exchanges so often, I may never see this lady again but she taught me something and hopefully the spirit we brought into her home taught her something as well. The next day was filled with lots of walking and with lots of cold wind but I was filled with joy because missionary work really is the best!

Thursday was kind of a crazy day we had to teach our investigator Dan in the morning and the lesson went really well. He's thinking about baptism he just hasn't received his answer yet. We keep praying he'll recognize the Holy Ghost. We then had a zone meeting we had to go to and then we had to quickly pack and head up to Calgary. All missionaries need to be in by 6 on Halloween so we needed to be in Calgary by that time. We got up to Calgary and me and Sister Doty hung out with President and Sister Nicholas for the evening it was honestly so much fun. We just ate pizza and relaxed and hung out with other missionaries. It felt like a little break hahaha. Friday was our leadership council and everything we heard was so great. There's so many great changes happening in missionary work. We also have our mission tour coming up on November 14th-15th Elder Swizter is coming from the 70 and he wants to do another Mission Leadership Council with us so yay for us! We get to go back to Calgary in 2 weeks! Hahaha I just love Calgary so much. Elder Swizter will also be coming down to Lethbridge and going out with the missionaries to some of their lessons. It would be so cool if he could come out with us! Sad thing is I started getting really sick when I was in Calgary with horrible flu like symptoms....I don't know what it is but I think Satan wants me sick always....stupid Satan. I had a fever, sick to my stomach...sore throat....etc.....etc.... lame. Anyways even with me being sick we saw so many miracles on Saturday.

Our investigator Jessica came to a baptism and loved it. She let us know that she wants to be baptized and she's preparing herself for December 7th. We also had another great lesson with our other investigator and she accepted the invitation of baptism as well! We honestly couldn't believe it. On Sunday Jessica and her husband came to church! They loved it. We also got a random phone call from a man we met on the streets and he wanted us to come teach him and his friends.

So many things are happening! Sister Doty and myself feel overwhelmed with Gods love. He truly is in control of this great work. The work is hastening!

This week will be extremely busy for us. We have 2 more exchanges and one of them is in Med Hat. We also are going up to Calgary the next week and then we get to look forward to Zone Conference! I love it! Being a missionary is the best thing in the world.

I love you all so much and hope you're doing good!

Love 

Sister Martin

 "This is a space ship in the town of Vulcan. We went on a little detour up to Calgary. Probably the strangest town I've ever been to."

 Can you spot Sarah?? Welcome to Vulcan!

Canadian prairie. 

Lethbridge at its best :)

Snowy Cold Canada has come!!!

Hey Family! 

How are you all? How is Utah doing? I miss you all so much! So this week was hard...hahaha sometimes the mission is just like that I guess. EVERYONE CANCELLED ON US. What the heck? Don't they realize their salvation is on the line? Anyways last Monday we drove out to Fort Macleod for p-day there is really nothing out there but it was fun to see other missionaries. We then had a lesson that night which went really well. We have 600 members in our ward but over 400 of them are less-active or in-active......lots of work to do! Tuesday we were going on exchanges with some of the sisters in Medicine Hat and we were meeting them half way in a small small town named Burdett and we were waiting for the sisters to show up and then we received a phone call from them telling us they were in Brooks! They totally went the wrong way and were headed to Calgary. Crazy girls hahaha I was laughing so hard. We ended up driving back to Taber and waiting for them. Me and Sister Doty also ended up buying a couple of maps of Alberta so we could help these sisters out if needed for next time. Me and Sister Clegg did a lot of service for members in the ward on Wednesday. We went up and down the street and racked leafs for people. A lot of people came out and talked to us which was super good as well. We have a couple of potential investigators from it so that was good. That night me and Sister Doty taught our investigator Jessica the restoration and she loved it! She said that it all made sense and that she would start reading from the Book of Mormon and praying!

Thursday we did our weekly planning and then had to quickly wash our car for car inspections....later that day we found out the companionship who has the cleanest car in the zone gets 300 extra kilometers so then we went back and washed and waxed and made our car look way good!

The next day we had our inspections and guess who won! Me and Sister Doty! Literally our car looked brand new! We then had interviews with President and it went so well. He told me to just keep doing what I'm doing and that he's grateful for all the work I've done for the members, investigators and sisters I'm over. I was so grateful to hear that. Later that day we went to the hospital to visit some people since its in our area and there's a bunch of members who are in it right now....I guess thats what happens when the average age of your ward is over 65 hahaha it was good to see how everyone was doing though.

So it finally snowed here in Canada! Crazy cold. I'm loving everything being covered in white though its great :)

I hope you're all doing well! I love you lots and think about you all the time! Keep praying for missionary opportunities :)

Taber 

Sister Clegg and Sister Martin 

Clean car!

Their cute little house. 

Their "deer" little friend :) 

First snow fall of the season.

Well hello family!!!

What a crazy week its been. I've learned so much this past week, I've grown so much this past week and I'm so grateful for all the experiences I'm having. Tuesday after I emailed you we went to a couple of appointments but sadly most people bailed on us. We did have to call and set up some appointments for my ward council and that went really well. The ward council wanted to go out and meet more less-active members in the ward and by some miracle Sister Doty and I set up 12 appointments for Wednesday night! I couldn't believe it because its hard to get that many appointments set up in 1 week. Heavenly Father was blessing us. The next day (Wednesday) we got a new investigator! He used to be a former and met with the missionaries almost 3 years ago. He has a hard time with the principle of faith but hopefully we can help him understand how powerful faith really is. We met with our ward mission leader that day as well and it just seemed like everything was going to perfectly..............sadly we got some bad news later that day. We decided to go and visit Kel because he hadn't been answering his phone or calling us back, when we got to his home his neighbor came out and told us that Kel had passed away the night before. I honestly couldn't believe it. We had gone by the night before and he just hadn't answered his door. I was flooded with emotions. Kel had been progressing so much, he was preparing to be baptized on October 26th. I was obviously crying a lot at this point and we slowly made our way back to the car where I was then overcome by the feeling of peace. I knew I had done everything I could to help Kel. Sister Doty had reminded me that the week before, I told her that I had a feeling that I was in this area to help someone prepare to meet God, that's exactly what I was doing with Kel. I knew that everything was going to be ok. Later that night I received a blessing and it told me exactly what I was feeling earlier that day. That Kel will accept the gospel in the next life and that I had done everything that Heavenly Father wanted me to do. There was some other amazing things said in the blessing that brought me so much peace and comfort. Kel was an amazing person and I'm so blessed to have been able to know him for the short time that I did. I learned so much from him. That night we also had our ward ministering night and everything went so well.

I realized then that Heavenly Father had been blessing us so much the past week with finding new investigators to help us prepare for Kel leaving. I honestly wish I could describe and tell you everything I learned that day and even the past few days after that. I know that Heavenly Father really does have a divine plan for all of us. That we are all part of His great plan and that Heavenly Father uses us as tools to help Him in this great work. Also the spirit world is so much closer to us than we realize. We had taught Kel a couple of times last week and he made some interesting comments for example: we were teaching about the gospel of Jesus Christ which is...Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. When we taught Kel that he said "My enduring to the end will be shorter than others, I'm grateful you're teaching me this." He also said in a closing prayer that he wished he could help us in this great missionary work. I know he's helping us now. 

The rest of the week was good, we went on exchanges with the Stirling sisters and I went out to Stirling again. What a cute little Village. We were also invited to a members home Sunday night and they put a little concert on for some of the ward members. This lady's house was so cool! She has more than 9,000 books and her house is super old with this amazing library! I loved it. I felt like we had traveled back in time. Sister Doty and I are still doing great, I just love her so much! I'm really so blessed to have her as my companion. 

I hope you all had a great week! I love you all so much and I'm so grateful for my amazing family :)

Love 

Sister M.

What a week! Transfer weeks are ALWAYS so crazy! It was also a little nuts with Sister LaCrue going home. Sad to see her go. She really had a hard time leaving her mission and it definitely made me realize to make every moment on my mission count because its going wayyyy to fast. Wednesday morning we were at the church for transfers and Sister Doty walked in and I was so surprised to see her since she was serving in Calgary.......and then they announce that she's my new comp! OH MY GOODNESS! I couldn't believe it, I just love her and its so fun since we've already established a friendship in the MTC. I was just way too happy about that one. We had 35 missionaries come out last week. The biggest transfer this mission has ever had. Its amazing. We're now at our max for sisters in the mission. Sister Doty and I are over 14 sisters still and two of the sisters are not native english speakers. One is from France and the other is from the Philippians. Crazy!! But awesome. Sister Doty and I have some great goals for this are this next transfer so I'm excited! We've already seen so many miracles the past week. We got 2 new investigators! That hasn't happened in a looooooonnnnngggg time. It so hard finding new investigators here but we found 2! Yay! One is in her 30's and is single and the other is from the part member family that I've been writing about. Her husband is less-active but we invited her to take the discussions and she said yes! MIracles. And we'll hopefully be getting a new one tomorrow! So happy. I loved going to Ward Council this past week because it seemed like everyone got more excited about missionary work because of conference. Hopefully we'll see good things come from it. Yesterday was Thanksgiving here in Canada. We didn't have a dinner and neither did 6 other missionaries so we all went to I-Hop....keepin it classy. It was way fun though and I wouldn't of had it any other way. We had our Zone Training Meeting this morning and me and Sister Doty trained our zone on Chapter 5 from PMG which is all about the Book of Mormon. I think it went pretty well, our zone is pretty awesome. 

I just want to let everyone know how much I love the Book of Mormon. It is true. There is no doubt in my mind. It will bring us closer to Christ and help us develop a relationship with Him. It will teach us the true and basic doctrines of the gospel. It will change you for the better if you sincerely read it, study it, pray about it and apply it to your life. 

I'm sorry this email is short! But I love you all so much!! Thank you for everything! 

Love 

Sister M.

Oh also in the Spirit of Thanksgiving her are 5 things I'm grateful for.....

1. My family...obviously.....you're all the best.

2. The gospel. Its awesome.

3. The prophet. WE HAVE A PROPHET ON THE EARTH TODAY. How great is that?

4. Warm clothes.....its starting to get cold here!

5. My Savior and the Atonement. Without Him nothing else matters. 

One of their investigators.

 Welcome to Lethbridge!

Sister Doty and Sister Martin at a little coffee house in Lethbridge......drinking hot chocolate of course :)

Hey family!!! What an amazing week. Sooo hard....but worth it. We retaught our investigator the plan of salvation on Tuesday because the last time we taught it he was on drugs and didn't get anything out of the lesson, but this time he was clear minded and loved the lesson. He even said he wanted to watch general conference with us over the weekend. Tuesday night we had exchanges with the sisters in West Lethbridge and I had Sister Hansen come to my area with me. She is wonderful. I love her! After the exchange she really opened up and told me how grateful she was to be able to learn so much from me.....I was like WHAT?! I learned so much from you! I seriously love getting to know all the sisters better and being able to help them and teach them, its great! We had some really great lessons on Tuesday as well that were all so spirit driven. That's when I know I'm doing things right, when the spirit can just speak through me. Honestly the Holy Ghost is the best tool a missionary can have. We're so blessed to have the gift of the Holy Ghost. On Thursday we drove to Calgary for Mission Leadership Council. I don't know what it is lately but I've been so emotional....probably because Sister LaCrue is so emotional about going home. But during MLC's President Nicholas started talking about how someday we'll be meeting with our Stake Presidents and our name tags will be coming off.....I just started crying thinking that I'm not ready to leave. I'm so grateful I have a year left because I still have so much to learn and do. They're calling one more set of Sister Training Leaders this transfer for up in Calgary because we'll hit our max amount of sisters this transfer having a little over 60. Its hard to believe this mission used to only have 6 sisters! Now there are so many more missionaries...its amazing! 

So how good was general conference??! SO GOOD. Oh my goodness, I was just soaking up every talk. So many things were repeated but everything had a different twist and it was all so spiritual. Also our investigator came and loved President Monson, he also said he learned a lot and loved everything he heard so that was great to hear as well.  Yesterday was super busy for us but it was amazing we had a lot of lessons yesterday and none of them fell through....its so rare when that happens. We also met with our investigator and after we said the prayer we were about to start teaching him and then he said "Wait. Stop right there!...you haven't sang yet." Hahaha we sang a hymn and tears filled his eyes and he said....every time I hear you sing I feel like there are angels around. Remember how I don't sing!? He loves it though so thats good. He then went on to tell us that he hasn't smoked in 6 days!! He's been a smoker for 40+ years and he also threw all his pornography away. I was so proud of him. He also closed our lesson with such a powerful prayer. I love seeing how the gospel changes people its amazing. He's such a better person now and he's not even baptized yet! We also taught a part member/ less-active family last night and they asked us a  bunch of questions about temples. They seemed so interested in being sealed together so hopefully we'll start teaching them soon! Things are happening, they're just happening super slowly but thats ok. So I'll be getting a new companion tomorrow! Crazy how fast this transfer went. Honestly this transfer has been super hard...way harder than my last two but I've grown so much and have learned so much so its been great.

I love you all so much!

Love 

Sister M.

Sister La Crue, Sister Martin, Sister McDade, Sister Estrada 

"My zone after watching conference....don't mind me not wearing shoes. I just love wool socks way to much! " 

Helloooooo!! Family! I love you! So sorry I only got to email for an hour last week....we have to make up the time we're in the temple on our p-day so we cut out some email time but it was worth it. I just love the temple so much. On Tuesday we met a lot more less-active members in the ward which was really good....we're still struggling to find people to teach but I just can't worry about it anymore. Heavenly Father knows we're working hard and thats all that matters. No effort is ever wasted. We had dinner with a really great part-member family and we're hoping that we can continue to get in and hopefully start teaching her kids. On Wednesday morning we were on exchanges and I was with Sister Butler for the day in my area and we went to go and do service for a lady in our ward....so we were helping her around her home and then her husband came downstairs and he was covered in this awful awful disgusting rash.....no offense to him but it was gross!! He said he had the shingles but seriously this looked bad.....like way worse than shingles and I started freaking out trying to be nice but I just couldn't concentrate on helping anymore and Sister Butler was freaking out as well. Sister Butler was funny about it though saying that since we're missionaries doing service that we would be protected from the disgusting rash. Later we were talking to a member and they mentioned how there is a measles outbreak in Lethbridge...OH MY GOODNESS. Crazy. He probably just had the measles. Then we had a lesson with a less-active family and they mentioned that they had new neighbors move in and we asked them to invite them over so we could meet them and they got way nervous and said that they weren't ready for that yet. Funny story though.....3 days later we got a phone call from some other missionaries saying that their investigator moved into our area and guess what? Its the exact same neighbors by that family! So we get to teach them anyways and yes we have a new investigator and I'm super happy about it! We had a couple of other lessons that went well that day so I was happy. We then we tried to contact a referral at a homeless shelter which seemed fine but we went kind of later at night and it was kind of sketch....bad idea...we'll have to go back during the day when its bright and sunny outside :) The next day was just our typical planning day and then that night we drove out to Medicine Hat to go on exchanges again and I stayed in Med Hat again. I was with Sister Koller who I actually met like 3 years ago...small world!! But we had a lot of fun in Med Hat, we got an investigator to pray out loud for the first time and it was amazing! I love hearing investigators pray....their prayers are so real and they just bring the spirit in. On Saturday we went around trying to invite less-active and non-members to the Relief Society Broadcast and we got some people to come which I was happy about! The broadcast was way good! I loved how all of it was about covenants. It was great! So things are good and crazy. And also funny moment of the week.....we have atone of natives around here and they all have really cool crazy names....so we were trying to find a lady with the last name of Crying Head and so we stopped at the house we thought they lived at and this lady came to the door and I said "Hi are you Sister Crying Head?" She looked at me like was crazy! And said WHAT? I then asked her if her last name was Crying Head and she just  started shutting the door in my  face....so I'm guessing thats a no. Hahaha there are way too many awkward moments on the mission.

 cats of canada :)

Exchanges with the Legacy Sisters. 

Medicine Hat exchanges

Windmill country. Windy Windy Windy. I love southern Alberta. How is everyone doing?? It sounds like everything is good. So this week was a lot better than last week. Tuesday was good but sooooo slow. Literally everyone and their dog is getting sick so no one wanted us in their homes because they didn't want us to get sick....which is fine I guess but I just want to teach people! Anyways Tuesday night I ended up going over to the west side of Lethbridge to go on exchanges. On Wednesday we woke up and it was RAINY. Kind of like Utah I guess. I heard your getting lots of rain. Well on Wednesday it rained alllllll dayyyyy looooongggg. I pulled out the winter boots I was getting so cold. Ha. I'm going to die when it snows. But with the rain it made everyone stay home and we taught a bunch of lessons. I loved it. And I felt like I really connected to a lot of the people. On Thursday we were running around trying to help some of the sisters out so we went to Stirling again and then went over to another set of sisters in Lethbridge. Then we had a couple of lessons that went really well. We're still trying to meet people in the ward because its so big and I'm awful at remembering names so its going to take awhile. That night I stayed in my area and had another sister come on exchanges. Her name is Sister Bogaert and she's from Austraila and is sooo sweet. I loved spending the day with her and learning from her. We were having a super awesome day, meeting a lot of new people and then we went to contact a referral. We were teaching this lady and we started teaching her the restoration. The spirit was so strong and the whole time I was thinking that she was going to be a new investigator. We described the first vision and she said she felt like a light entered the room when we described it to her. We then were teaching her about the Book of Mormon and she said she really wanted to find out if it was true. We asked her to pray about it and she said she would. We then asked her if we could come another time and she said no.......OH MY GOODNESS. I was shocked. We tried to have her explain why she didn't want us to come back and she said that she didn't deserve Gods love and that this happiness wasn't for her. My heart sank. It was so sad. We tried to keep talking to her but she said she would just call us when she's ready. I'm praying she does.

Saturday we went to the temple. It was so needed. The Cardston temple is SO pretty. Oh my goodness I loved it. Sister LaCrue taught a lady who got baptized last year and she went through the temple for the first time! We were so happy for her! I wish I could just stay in the temple forever. That night we taught our investigator Kel and he still wants to be baptized we just need to help him quit smoking. He's making a lot of progress though and I'm super happy. Also our investigator came to church on Sunday which made me really happy. There's definitely been some ups and downs but its all been good. I just love the gospel so much. Its amazing. 

I hope you're week is good!

Love

Sister M.