Hey Family :)

I know I say it a thousand times and I'll say it a thousand more but I just love you all so much. I don't know how I got so blessed to have such an awesome family. 

So this week was really good. After emails last week we went and stopped by this lady's house and she's in her late 20's and hasn't been to church since she's been baptized but she wants to know more about the church she was baptized into. Its fun because its almost like she's a new investigator. She really wants to find peace and happiness in her life. I'm excited to see her progress because it will be such a great blessing to her and her family. We also went and helped with the cub scouts.....ha it was hilarious. They were learning how to rope and Sister Mortensen knows how to rope so she helped them out and it was so cute to see these little boys try and rope. We also got asked to go to Young Womens that night and explain why we came on missions and what they need to do to prepare to go on missions. It was super fun. I think my biggest advice is to just have a testimony of this gospel and a desire to share it with others. If you stay close to the Savior and pray and read your scriptures everyday then you'll be more ready then you think you are. We also had a lesson with another girl that night and it made me so frustrated! Oh boy. People sometimes just drive me insane. She told me that she's happier not keeping the commandments. I've never been so bold with someone in my life. The worldly things in life do not bring happiness to your life. She just doesn't understand what the gospel can do for her. Oh goodness people should not tell me that the gospel doesn't help them. 

On Thursday we had interviews with President. I love my mission President. He's the most Christlike person I know. I told him I wanted to stay in Taber so hopefully that happens :) He just had so many positive things to say to me....it was exactly what I needed to hear. I was feeling pretty down thinking I wasn't doing very well but he just said the perfect things and made me super happy and excited to go out and work. That night we went out with a girl that's getting ready to go on her mission in April and I think it was good to have her see what we do. Her family is one of my favorite families here in Taber. Honestly the people here are so good. I just don't know how I got so blessed to come to the areas that I've come to.  We were on exchanges at the time as well and I had Sister Matangi with me from Lethbridge. What an awesome sister. I learn so much from these missionaries. The next day we drove to Stirling and I stayed in Stirling with Sister Shumway. She's awesome as well. Her last companion was Sister Blommaert! It was so fun to hear how she's doing. I haven't seen her since I finished training her but she's now training for a second time which makes me so proud!! She's just doing awesome things up in Calgary. 

Church was super good! Our investigator came. He's so awesome and doing really well and really enjoyed church. Church is awesome! Sometimes its long having 8 hours of church hahaha but its such a good time to receive revelation. We taught him yesterday and the spirit was so strong! He prayed for the first time and said in the prayer that he knows everything we've taught him so far is true. It was so nice to hear that. 

So this upcoming week should be good. We're headed to Calgary on Friday and carpooling up with Sister Doty which I'm excited about! She wanted to tell you all hi :)

love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love 

Sister M.

Miracles

Hello Family and Friends :)

How is everything going? I hope its as good as whats happening here in Taber! We just keep seeing miracle after miracle.

On Tuesday I had a little accident hahaha I guess I'm just accident prone....so here in Alberta we get the Chinooks right? Which melts all the snow which is awesome but then at night it freezes over and everything turns into a giant skating rink.....I've literately thought of going and buying ice skates for a faster form of transportation. Anyways it gets super dangerous right? Like last Sunday we had soooo many people fall and break something. So back to the main part of the story I was on exchanges in Medicine Hat......we were walking on a hill of straight ice...bad idea. I fell down.....straight on my face! Then I blacked out......yup. The poor sister that I was on exchanges with had no idea what to do. After I woke up I tried to get back up and then fell down again since I was so light headed. Luckily all my teeth were still in. I was thinking I would wake up with a huge black and blue face but I didn't!Miracle! I did have a major headache for awhile though. Oh my hahaha its funny now. The rest of the exchange went well though.

The next night we had an amazing lesson with a part member family in the ward. He's not a member and we just felt super impressed that we needed to go to their house. We shared the lesson but nothing really special happened. Then when we're about to leave the man just breaks down and starts crying. (I think I've made more grown men cry on my mission then ever before hahaha) Anyways he just opens up to us and said that he's afraid to pray because he's afraid of the answer he'll get. We told him that he just needs to exercise his faith and he told us that he never thought he would meet with missionaries again but he wants us to come back! Miracle!

On Thursday this 94 year old lady invited us to lunch at her assisted living place :) Highlight of my week. I love spending time with these people and learning about their life. Most of them have lived in Taber their whole life and its awesome.

We've been teaching lots of less-active members here and its been super rewarding to see them progress as well. We got a phone call from a man in Raymond telling us that his friends want to learn more on Saturday we taught them. They're a young Mennonite couple....super cool culture but if they join the church the rest of their colony shuns them so its rough.....but they want to learn more as well! Miracle! We also taught another man who used to be in a gang and he said he believes in Jospeh Smith and that he knows that he was a prophet...he didn't know how he knew these things though and I told him that it was the spirit testifying to him that it is true :) I asked him whats holding him back from being baptized and he said he wants to learn more. So we'll teach him and prepare him for baptism! Miracle! He came to church and loved it. 

Heavenly Father truly is preparing His children at this time. I'm so so so blessed to be a part of this great work. I love it! I've been having minor breakdowns about thinking that I'm going to hit my year mark next month...but looking back I wouldn't change one thing about my mission. Heavenly Father really has blessed me. 

I love you all so much and I want you to know how much we are blessed to have the gospel in our lives. 

Love

Sister M

Barb's baptism. Read about it here.

Sarah's last district. 

"This is the famous "Crazy Ray" and yes she likes to be called Crazy Ray hahaha what an awesome lady."

Out in the Country 

Guess who came to visit??! Sister Laughlin, Sarah's recent convert, came into Taber to see her :)

What a week! Its flying by. We're still trying to get settled and get the hang of everything, luckily the members here in Taber are AMAZING and are still just loving the fact that they have sister missionaries. The members said they went to a basketball game and the whole crowd was talking about the "new sister missionaries" in town hahahahaha hilarious!

So this week consisted of a lot of meetings, meetings with our ward mission leaders, meetings with other members in our ward councils and MLC in Calgary. We've met some incredible people here in Taber and I hope I can be here for awhile. We have so much potential here. LOTS of less-active members LOTS of part-member families. I've never had a ward be so good at trying to get the ward mission process going. The members are setting up appointments for us. They're coming out on splits with us...they're pretty much trying to get everything going for us which is AWESOME. I feel so blessed. We drive out to lots of farms which is fun, Sister Mortensen feels right at home here :) 

Mission Leadership Council was this past friday and it was super good. It's always nice to be back in Calgary. When I got up there I heard one of my investigators from Calgary was recently baptized. Its always nice hearing things like that, knowing my efforts made a difference at the beginning of their conversion. I also got a package from a non-member that I became friends with in Calgary, she wanted to send me a little gift which just made my day. She's planning on being baptized soon as well. At MLC we talked a lot about becoming better leaders for the mission which I loved. We usually focus more on the other missionaries and the mission but it was nice to focus on us as leaders and how we can improve. I felt super humbled leaving MLC and had a lot to reflect on. I have so much I need to improve on to be the best missionary that I can be. I don't think I've ever really lost my focus but its easy to become comfortable where things are at. That's why I think it was so good that I got transferred into a more challenging area than my last one to help me grow and push my limits. And let me tell you it definitely has. We don't have any investigators yet but there are a lot of less-actives that we're starting to work with. We have a lot of members that are working with non-members so hopefully we can start teaching them soon. 

On Saturdays we go over to an assisted living place called Clearview Lodge and read scriptures with some members. They're all over the age of 90 and its great! I love it. They're super blunt with us and I love being able to see their perspective on the scriptures that we're reading. 

On Sunday we had ward council at 7:30 and then church at 9 and then our other ward council at 11:30 and then we were asked to speak at another mini sacrament meeting at Clearview Lodge at 3. SO MUCH CHURCH! I was spiritually fed thats for sure. Ha I've never been so tired in my life. But let me tell you the thing that's SO great! So like I said we were asked to speak at Clearview for their little sacrament meeting. There was around 10 ladies in this tiny room where we held sacrament meeting. The spirit was so strong! The miracle that happened though was we invited this older lady Helen to come, she's been inactive for years and years of her life. For some reason she said she'll come and she partook of the sacrament :) The Bishop told us that this was probably the first time she's taken the sacrament in almost 60 years! Can you believe that? It just made me reflect on how important the sacrament is, we get to renew our covenants...I love that so much! The gospel is awesome. 

I'm hoping we can find some people to teach this week! I keep praying for it and the Lord keeps telling me to be patient.....ha story of my mission! I know the Lord will always bless us for our efforts though. We have exchanges this week as well, hopefully those go good. 

I love you all so much. The Plan of Salvation is a plan of Happiness. I love knowing families can be together forever. 

Love 

Sister M. 

Here's Sarah's beautiful friend CJ who just opened her mission call and is going to Toronto!

I'M SERVING IN THE small TOWN OF TABER! Its super famous for its corn :) Thank goodness its not corn season. I already ate too much corn when I was in Lethbridge in the fall. So saying goodbye to my last area was pretty hard. It was super hard to say goodbye to Sister Doty. She was such an awesome companion. I worked hard in Lethbridge and I have no regrets. I want to leave each and everyone of my areas with no regrets and so far its been good. My new companion is Sister Mortensen from Cortez Colorado! Small world. Taber is a farming community and its 8000 people they also grow sugar beets and potatoes. Me and Sister Mortensen are the first sisters in Taber in over 30 years. We're literally famous. Hahaha the members are LOVING us. Like literally I don't think we could do anything wrong they just adore us here. I'm over 2 wards which will be different since I've only been over 1 ward my whole mission. 6 hours of church! And with meetings we start at 7:30am and go until 4:00pm crazy eh? I'm still an STL and I still cover Med Hat and East Lethbridge, I'm now over 4 companionships of sisters instead of 8 which will be super nice! 

All the people in Taber are super nice. Its just funny thinking in my first area I was over an area of 35,000 people in my last area I was in an area of 8,000 and now I'm over an area of probably 2,000. Haha President just keeps putting me in smaller and smaller areas. Its way fun though!

We don't have any investigators right now but that will change! Don't you worry. Our goal is to work hard to meet and get to know all the members, I think they'll be are biggest tool to find investigators.

We were supposed to go to MLC's last week but while we were driving up there President called and said for us to turn around because the weather was so bad in Calgary so it got moved to this Friday. It will be so nice to go to Calgary and see everyone....aka Sister Doty! hahaha 

Also CRAZY story! At transfer station I was asked to play the piano.......crazy I know. I've gotten a little better but still not that good. Anyways I was playing the piano and a new Elder came in and pointed and said "Its Sister Martin!" I have no idea who it is and he's from Germany anyways he came up to me and said that he's been reading my blog! Hahaha all the way from Germany!

So the weather is getting better! It got way cold again...-30 but now its -16 which is super warm! Ha I'm going to be able to handle any winter after this. 

Hopefully things go well here in Taber! I'm super excited to be here and to learn what I need to learn. I love my mission, it makes me sad every time I think about how fast its going. Its been such a blessing in my life to be out here and to learn not only what I need to do to be a better member when I go home but how to be a more Christlike person for the rest of my life.

I hope schools going well for Sam and Kate! Keep up the hard work! Sam I just got a letter from you! thank you! You'll be getting one soon :) I love you family thanks for everything!

Love 

Sister M.

"Bye Lethbridge and Sister Doty :) I love you!!" 

Sister Jones, Sister Shumway, Sister Mortensen, Me, Sister Matangi, Sister Butler.

Here are some of the sisters that Sarah is over. They're all awesome missionaries! 

Family!! I love you!! It was SO good to talk to you on Christmas. Oh my what a crazy week. I honestly can't believe Christmas is over......this whole time on my mission I've been waiting for it to come and now its over. The mission is just going way too fast.

Anyways the rest of the week was good! I went out to Medicine Hat on Thursday for the last exchange of the transfer. When we were in Med Hat we were walking around and my feet got so soaked....the bottom of my shoes are kind of missing so I guess it makes sense hahaha I finally caved and decided to buy new shoes on the mission. Hopefully these last the rest of my mission! Also on Saturday the baptism went really well :) Barb was so ready for it and I'm so grateful I had the chance to teach her. I gave a talk on baptism and I think it went ok hahaha I think its just better for me to not give talks...especially when I get so emotional at baptisms. So our zone has been working so hard to accomplish our zone goals this transfer. We wanted 28 new investigators 26 investigators at church and 10 baptized or on date. We got 31 new 26 to church and 8 baptized or on date. SO CLOSE! We were working so hard to accomplish them. It made me and Sister Doty a little bit crazy...to the point where we met with a random lady taught her the first lesson and invited her to be baptized in 10 minutes hahahaha it was the funniest thing of my life. She said she wants to be baptized but needs to read the Book of Mormon first. CRAZIEST THING OF MY LIFE!! We didn't get her on a specific date but we're meeting with her again this upcoming week. Miracles happen when you work hard. We also got another one of our investigators on date to be baptized in the first part of February. Literally there are so many things happening in this area! Oh did I mention I'm being transferred! Ha its funny how things happen. When I got to this area it was completely dead and now there are so many things happening and I'm leaving. Its ok though I feel like I've done what I needed to in this area.

Today we went snowshoeing in Waterton. It was SO nice to be back in the mountains with trees and a bunch of snow :) I loved it!

Anyways this email will be another short one. Sorry! I need to pack my bags and I talked to you last week on the phone so its ok :) I love you all! Thanks for being the best family ever.

Love

Sister M.

Snowshoeing with the McLeod family! 

Snowshoeing!