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.

HELLO! I never thought this day would come. This past week was CRAZY. Oh my goodness. So lets see.....me and Sister LaCrue are still going around the ward trying to meet the members and build relationships with them. We've met a lot more less-active members and found a couple part-member families that have a lot of potential. So I was really happy about that. On monday night we were actually teaching a part-member family and we started teaching the wife about the Book of Mormon and she turned to her husband and she said "why have you never taught this to me before?" He never thought she wanted to know. So hopefully we can start teaching her:) I would love that. We also got a referral for a lady and we have an appointment with her this week so I'm super excited about that as well. On Tuesday we had zone training and it was really good we talked about our zone goals and what we can do to improve our areas. I'm just getting impatient because I want things to start happening in this area but I know that Heavenly Father is teaching me right now. On Wednesday Sister LaCrue and I drove to Taber for a specialized training with President Nicholas it was really good and we talked a lot about leadership and our callings in our mission. We then had a lesson with our investigator that night and I've just come to the conclusion that I need to be really patient with this investigator, its going to take a lot of time with him but I'm excited about his potential. On Thursday we helped some sisters with their weekly planning......nothing too exciting. And then we drove to Medicine Hat which is a 2 hour drive east. I stayed in Medicine Hat with Sister Wray and it was so fun! I love Sister Wray she came out with me. So on Friday I was in Med Hat for the day and we did some service and taught a lesson to a recent convert. The spirit was so strong when we were teaching her. I love feeling the spirit, I love having it testify to me and the people we're teaching. We then met up with the other sisters and drove back to Lethbridge. He're the thing though....President called us and wanted us to drive back to Med Hat on Saturday and do some things for him. I felt like I was driving all week. We drove out to Med Hat on Saturday did what we had to do and then got back in the car and drove back. 5 hours in the car.....awful! Luckily me and Sister LaCrue got a big Dr. Pepper and put on some good music (mission appropriate obviously) and had a fun time road tripping through all the tiny towns in Canada. When we got back I was so tired. Sunday we had another Sister missionary with me and Sister Lacrue. It made me grateful that I'm normally not with 2 sisters. It makes it harder to teach when there's 3 of us instead of 2 luckily it was only for a day. 

So I'm sorry that I don't have too many fun or exciting stories this week. I was pretty much trapped in a car driving to Medicine Hat 4 billion times. But life is good. I'm excited for this week! I have a feeling we'll find a new investigator :) I love you all and hope you're having a great week!

Love 

Sister M.

 Road Tripping

Tracting 

 The famous Medicine Hat teepee

Exchanges with Med Hat sisters

Hellooooooo. Hello. 

Oh my goodness! Family you are the best. Never forget it. How's everything going? Mom? Dad? Sam? Kate? I hope you're all happy and doing well. I love you so much. 

So I've been all over the place this week. Literally. We taught our investigator Kel tuesday afternoon and it went really well. He pointed to his heart and said I feel it here....I feel that this is true. I LOVE when things like that happen. He wants to be baptized, we just need to help him overcome his addictions and he'll be good! Wednesday was the looooonnnngggessstttt day of my life. We just rode around on our bikes and no one was home and I was just getting frustrated. It was super hot and then I was getting mad at myself for having a bad attitude. Things got better though we had a really good lesson with a less-active lady and I realized that I just need to be patient with this area and with myself. There are some incredible people here and I know me and Sister La Crue can do a lot of great things here if we just trust in the Lord. Thursday we traveled up to Calgary and its around a 2 hour drive. And let me tell you....I was SO happy to be back in Calgary hahaha. I was just driving around with a huge smile on my face. We stopped at the mission home and had some dinner. It was so great to see President and Sister Nicholas again. We then went and stayed with some of the sisters at their place of the night and it was just really fun to be able to relax and not stress about the previous week. The next morning we had a very yummy breakfast at the mission home with all the zone leaders and the sister training leaders and then went over to the church and had our little meeting. I loved knowing what was going on in the mission in more detail and being able to help make goals for the mission. Overall it was a really good meeting. Then we jumped back in our car and headed back down to Lethbridge we ate really quickly and then we had to go on exchanges with the sisters in Stirling so we drove to Stirling and I stayed there for the night. Stirling is a tiny tiny town. Super cute. I loved being able to work with the other sisters and I'm just super impressed by how hard they're working and how well they're doing for not being out very long. Over 50% of the mission has been out for less than 6 months so our mission is young but they're doing great! I love it. Then I drove back to Lethbridge just in time for Stake Conference. The adult session was great. And we had the chance to introduce Kel to President and Sister Nicholas which was fun. President Nicholas spoke at stake conference about doing missionary work and it was super good. Hopefully people learned something from it. The sunday session of stake conference was really good as well. And then after that I just wanted to crash....haha and I kind of did.....since my throat started freaking out and hurting and then I felt sick for the rest of the day. no fun. I'm doing better now so don't worry.

Anyways this week was great. Hopefully we can get some things going on in this area. I love you all! 

Have a great week!

Love 

Sister M.

Sarah and the really old sign in the cute town of Stirling. 

Sister La Crue and Sister Martin.

Hello from Lethbridge!

So I'm in my new area! I'm in Lethbridge and I'm serving in the Chinook area and let me tell you the last few days have been quite the adventure. So when we arrived to the transfer station on Wednesday morning it was definitely hard saying goodbye to Sister Blommaert. She's such an amazing missionary and I'm going to miss serving with her but I"m sure she'll do great things in Chestermere. It was super sad to say goodbye to Chestermere, we had a lot of good things going on when I left. I also thought there were only one set of Sister Training Leaders in the South but they put 2 sets because there were so many sisters to be over. We all got in the transfer van and headed south. It took about 2 hours to get to Lethbridge. My new companion is Sister LaCrue she's 32 and she goes home in 6 weeks. I should be able to learn a lot from her. The area we're in was just opened a few months ago so we have a lot to learn. The first day we were going to different members homes so I could meet them and I ended up tripping on the curb and I sprained my ankle....bad. It immediately started swelling like a giant hippopotamus and we went home for the rest of the night. I couldn't walk on it or anything. I was so angry with myself for being so clumsy! Ha oh well.

We currently have only 1 investigator in this area so I'm hoping we can start working really hard to find more. Honestly the past few days have been hard. So hard. Sister LaCrue is awesome and has so much patience with me. I just feel like I'm brand new in the mission field. I don't know anyone, there's nothing really going on in the area and I'm limping around on a stupid ankle with some pretty sweet bruises that were black and blue. Hahaha my life.

Anyways I've learned a lot in the last couple of days as well. I'm being humbled a lot. A LOT. I'm relying on Heavenly Father more and He's teaching me patience. 

This is how I look at it.....the first 3 months of my mission were rough.......and then after that it got really good and I started seeing lots of miracles and blessings and then I started becoming a little too confident and then Heavenly Father put me here and now I'm being humbled. And I'm grateful for it, even though its hard. I'm excited to see what me and Sister LaCrue can do in this area.

So as a sister training leader me and Sister Lacrue are over 16 sisters, covering the areas in Lethbridge, Stirling and Medicine Hat. We'll be going on lots of exchanges with them which will be fun because I get to see a lot more areas. We also get to go back up to Calgary this weekended for the mission leadership council. I'm sooooo excited to see Calgary again hahaha I miss it a lot. I can definitely tell I'm not in the big city anymore but it will be fun to explore Lethbridge and the other areas as well. 

Other than that I'm alive and doing well :) I love you all and hope you're all doing good as well. Give the new puppy a big hug for me! I'm jealous! 

Love 

Sister M. 

Sarah's last P-Day in the East Zone. 

Bye Bye Chestermere! 

Sister Maund and Sister Martin 

Sister Bullock (who Sister Blommaert is training), Sister Blommaert, and Sister Martin! 

 Right before Sarah had to leave. Bye Bye Sister B.

Sister Strathern and Sister Martin! 

The famous bridge in Lethbridge.