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