This is it!

This is ridiculous. I'm out of time. I'm getting the boot. And it really stinks. I'll get over it eventually and to be honest I don't think it's actually hit me what's going on. It just really....stinks. So instead of getting all down about it and thinking about all of these great people that I'm going to miss, I'm going to write my last e-mail to you as if it wasn't the last e-mail I was ever writing on my mission. Are you ready to pretend with me? ok here we go!
AFFE IS GETTING BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY!!!!!!! WWWWWWWHHHHAAAT?! I know right? IT's nuts! I'll get to actually see her get baptized before I go. She'll get baptized on Saturday, on Sunday she'll be cofirmed and on Monday I'm headed to Halifax. Is this like every missionaries dream or what? Before you get to thinking anything, no I did not talk her into it. I did want to. But I didn't. She just came to church on Sunday and in Relief Society she turned to us and said,"oh actually my friend isn't coming from Toronto so I can get baptized before January 3rd since he won't be here to see it." I was close to freaking out at that point but wasn't sure how soon she wanted to get baptized. She waited a couple of minutes and then turned to us again and said, "And maybe I could get baptized before you leave Sister Crane!" I replied with, "THIS Saturday?" "Or Friday," was her oh-so chill response. That's when the freak out actually happened. I feel bad for the Relief Society teacher, although I think I hid it well enough. After church ended we then hurriedly went with her as she asked each member to give a talk, or baptize or her or say a prayer at the baptism. I'm so excited! Affe has been ready since forever. And I got to teach her pretty much from the her start when I got here. So this has been 5 months now and I'm so pumped! She's so ready. AH!
Our Relief Society Christmas party was on Saturday and it was awesome. Kylie, our investigator came. It was exciting. I ate a lot of sweets and pretty much died from a sugar coma. I also played for them while they sang Christmas carols and after I got done one of the Sisters there says, "oh we're going to miss Sitser Crane aren't we?!" It hillarious because they will all miss me but only because I'm the only one who plays the piano! haha This talent has def. come in handy out here. I also love how this week I've been asked to pray more than ever before. It's kind of ridiculous. Everyone wants me to pray since it's my last time, little do they know how many "last times" I've been having. And their adding up. Oh well. More blessings. Or something.
Oh oh OH so the Elders had a baptism last Saturday and our investigator Vivian came. She's the one that is so incredibly in tune with the Spirit and is from China and is the sweetest thing ever. Ok so she tells us after she watches the baptism that as she saw Eileen go under the water she had this feeling of, "I want to do that!" and her heart was beating really fast! She also said it wasn't like the movies or what she's seen on TV about baptism, but it was more "sacred". Woah. Where did she learn that word?! So amazing! I wish I could be here for her baptism, but she's going back to China for a few months to visit so I'm hoping when she comes back she'll get in contact with missionaries!
The Lord is blessing us greatly. It's incredible. I can never repay Him for what He has done for me by allowing me to serve a mission. I know that I'll be such a better person for it. I'm so grateful for the chance to learn and grow and especially to witness so many amazing tender mercies and miracles. THE CHURCH IS TRUE! What a blessing to serve the Savior. I really don't want to ever take off this name tag. But I am grateful that my service to Him doesn't end when my mission ends. I get to continue to serve Him each day for the rest of my life. How exciting is that?! Someone once told me that in the church you have to learn to say "next." Things are always changing and always moving and you can't live in the past or future you need to live in the present. And as each calling comes you have to learn to say, "next" and be able to move on to the next adventure. So after this week I will say next and take what I've learned here and apply it to my continued life of serving the Savior. I testify that He lives!

Love,
Sister Crane

Don't ever announce over the pulpit that your going home in 2 weeks. Everyone gets all nastalgic and includes you in their testimony and it's down right embarrassing. Blasted nastalga. Sam is one of those that got up and bore her testimony and oh man she is so awesome! She made Fredericton what it is for me and I couldn't be more grateful for her. Naoise (10) was so cute after sacrament meeting she ran up to me and screamed "NO!" she took my hand and told me with tears in her eyes that she didn't want me to leave. I explained that I would come and visit and that this only meant she would get another friend because another sister would come. Naoise is the sweetest. I can't wait for her to get baptized.
So did you know that this is my 2nd to last e-mail home? I'm going to try and make it good but honestly it's all a blur. We got 6 new investigators this week and in case you're wondering if that's good or not IT'S AWESOME! Cosette is one of those. She's Sam's friend from work and she's AMAZING! We started teaching the restoration and she couldn't stop smiling. I stopped talking and asked her what she was smiling at if there was something wrong and she replied with, "It's just so wonderful!" WHA? Where do these people come from?! It's AWESOME! Scott is another new investigator, we met with him once and then he came last night to institute and the Christmas devotional! Seriously how can you go wrong with the 1st presidency? Affe is doing so awesome! She loves coming teaching with us and is so excited to get baptized in January. I feel a lot better about missing it, because the reason she wants to wait is b/c her best friends flying in from Vancouver and he'll see it and maybe he'll decide he wants to get baptized too!
We had our ward Christmas party on Saturday and it was so much fun! Ryan and Jessica came (the ones who live across the hall) and they brought us each a christmas present! I just about died. They are the nicest. (Man do I sound enthusiastic today or what? It's because being a missionary makes you so happy) So at the party we were in charge of the music, we put on a few Christmas classics, frank sinatra, bing crosby, it was a hit. And then I played for everyone while they sang Christmas carols. What is it about Christmas parties that make everyone so cheery and friendly? I don't know but I love it! We even had a ton of our less-actives come to it! It was the best.
Last night Jessica and Ryan had us over for dinner. Ryan said it was the least they could do for us since we've been teaching them. Again, who are these people? SO cool! We committed them to start having family prayer and at the end we all knelt together and Ryan offered the prayer. In it he said, "I pray that one day we'll be with you, Lord, and our family forever." AH! love it.
Vivian's doing awesome! In our lesson on repentance we committed her to repent every day and she replied with, "but what if I don't sin everyday?" I was kind of taken back and then thought, "good!" We then explained how sometimes it's just about being better, not neccessarily the big sins but small things too.
Can you tell we're teaching a lot of people? we are. the most I've ever taught EVER. 23 investigators this week! 23! It's so cool. I love Fredericton. I love my mission! I love it! I am so grateful for a loving Father in Heaven. I recieved exciting news about 2 of my recent converts in Truro who hadn't been going to church and they went to church yesterday! This was such a huge answer to prayer and it made me realize that even when I'm not there God will take care of these people I love so much because He loves them MORE. What a huge blessing, to know they they'll be ok. I love this work. I'm not leaving this place till I give everything I've got!
Love,
Sister Crane

Chinese people are awesome. I'm over this whole teaching Canadians thing. Chinese people are where it's at! Affe (from China) is on date! hip hip hooray! Jan. 3rd! woot! (we're trying to talk her into sooner you know since I won't be there for it but we'll see...) Vivian who is also from China is sooooooooo amazing! Ah! She has the BEST questions EVER!!!! She asked this week if God ever gets tired of hearing us pray, if we could ever pray TOO much. Of course I reassured her that that's not possible but what a great question! AND we got 2 new chinese investigators! woot! They're both students at the local university here and it's so cool to teach people who don't know anything about God. With all of the Chinese people we've taught they each have brought up that they think they should pray to God only when they need something or when they're having a bad day. It's so neat to teach each of them that they can pray to God and should pray to Him no matter what, even if it's just to thank Him. Oh man sooooo cool! I feel like I've now served my mission not only in Canada but China too. Except I get the perk of speaking my own language. The best is that Affe comes to our appointments and translates words that maybe they don't know in english like "baptism" or "authority." Man I love this job.
So our next door neighbors are now being taught! See guys you can talk to you neighbors and it works! Seriously they live literally right across the hall. Jessica is a less-active and Ryan her fiance is not a member. They have 2 adorable kids, Lilly and Logan. Lilly had her birthday party this week so we stopped by to give her a present. We got her a coloring book to use at church. And guess what they totally came to church! It was so cool! Lilly is seriously so adorable. On Saturday after her party we heard a knock at our door. (no one ever knocks on our door by the way so it was kind of weird) We open the door and there is Lilly with a little goodie bag from her party and 2 princess crowns for us. She said that her Mom said she could come give it too us and told us that she, "loved us with all her heart." haha who is this kid?! It was pretty cute.
We have a couple more new investigators too! We're teaching another person from Iran and 2 other girls. I just feel like God is pouring out His blessings on us right now. It's so amazing! The church is true! Another thing He's pouring out on us is SNOW! We had a massive snow storm on Wednesday and President told everyone that they weren't allowed to drive. bummer. That's never happened before that I know of, so the roads must have been really dangerous. So sister Lorenc and I found other productive things to do, one of which was taking awesome pictures in the snow. I am kind of glad that it snowed before I left so I could go knock doors in the snow one last time (well maybe, it could snow again for all I know).
I can't believe it will be December this week! Pretty crazy. I'm so grateful for the people I've been meeting. I'm constantly reminded of the good that planting seeds can do. We got let into a door last night and she said it was because last time she saw missionaries they saw she was having a bad day and stopped her on the street and asked her if they could help her with anything. She said they were just so nice and it seemed like the thing that Christ would do. These 2 missionaries will never know what an impact it made on this woman and how because of it we have an appointment to teach her this week. Charity never faileth! And good examples can have a huge impact. We may never know just how much. Have a great week! Go do some good act and have fun with it!

Love,
Sister Crane

Woah woah woah. What did we even do this week? It was nuts! So many lessons, so much stress. It was kind of crazy. There have always been moments of that on my mission, times where you get so stressed you can't even think clearly. People tell you sooooo much stuff and you listen A LOT. It's kind of insane the amount of information that you take in. And every now and then you get an overload and start shutting down. Sister Lorenc and I both hit that point. We became so exhausted and became zombies for a few days but some how recovered as you always do. I don't know how you recover, because you don't just get extra sleep or something. I feel like it's one of those times that God just gives you the strength and energy that you need for your calling. It's awesome.
So even after a paragraph of typing I still really couldn't tell you what we did all week. Sam is doing awesome. She comes teaching with us and goes to YSA and is just so cool. She's told us some more details of her life too that have made me realize how much God prepared her to meet us on the bus that day. It's pretty incredible how God knows us each individually. Sister Lorenc and I have been talking about that a lot she had a good analogy for it. It's like we're the quarter in the candy machine. God made the machine, he already filled it up with candy and he sticks us in and then he turns the knob and there you go! That's all we are really, the quarter. What a blessing it is to be apart of HIS work.
We've been working with a lot of members lately and getting a lot of dinner appointments. It's funny because we weren't really getting many dinner appointments until I announced in relief society that we would be happy to have kraft dinner (mac & cheese) or Mr. Noodle (Top Raman). bada bing bada boom. None of them have fed us that but I think they all realized how desperate we are :) I love going and seeing members. Lately we've been doing this scripture challenge with them and while they do it for a week they pray about their friends. They are all so willing to share the gospel it's so awesome!
I wish I could think up more details about the work but the weeks are so jam packed and all I can think to add is that I know that this church is true. I know that God answers prayers. I know that he sent me here for a reason. It's a priveledge to serve, and I love doing it. Have a great Thanksgiving week!

Love,
Sister Crane

Pictures from the baptism

Sam got baptized! woot! It was so awesome! She was so happy and so excited! She got baptized on 11/11/11 and it was also remembrance day in Canada (US has Veteran's day). So that day we went 2 hours early to go fill up the font. We start to fill it up and it's ice cold. I mean ICE cold. The St. John river would have been warmer. The heater is broken, so we grab an older member that happened to be in the building and he got us a ladder to get to the attic. So here we are in our skirts climbing this huge ladder to get to the attic. We try reseting the water heater and it's still not working. The clock is ticking and I'm thinking there is no way we could let someone go into something so cold! So we head over to the mother's lounge to fill up hot water into buckets and transfer the buckets to the font. The old fashioned way, you know. A member of the bishopric came to fix it and by the time Sam got there it was fixed. However there wasn't time to fill it up with hot water so it was more like kind of cold instead of freezing. When we told Sam about it all she responded with, "Even if it had been freezing I would have jumped in!" The baptism went smoothly from there on out. She did get out and mention that we could check baptism and polar dip on the bucket list though. :) So I guess it wasn't as warm as I thought.

      I can't express the joy I felt just witnessing this awesome baptism! This girl seriously is icredible. I've never seen such enthusiasm for the gospel not even from members. It's nuts! She kept thanking us for everything and even said, "I couldn't have done it without you." I laughed really hard at that and said, "ya, actually you could have!" We all looked at eachother and laughed thinking, ya that's true. Seriously she had been so prepared by our Heavenly Father.

     Yesterday our lesson with Elaine was awesome! Elaine is from China, she's the one that fed us all that good Chinese food. Elaine is so cool because she does this whole reflective listening thing. When we're done talking about a subject she will recap what we've told her in her own words and then recap what she needs to do. She shared this really cool experience with us too! She said that last week after we taught her how to pray she thought she would pray to ask for help on her test the next day. So before she went to bed that's what she did. Then as she was lying in bed she had this feeling that she should look over her notes from a lab she had that week. So she got out of bed and reviewed her notes. Then when she went to the test the next day there were only 3 questions on the whole test and one of them was all about that lab that she had felt prompted to study! How cool is that?! After telling us this she told us that she wasn't sure if she was just lucky or if God had helped her. We explained that God helped her and that the Holy Ghost gave her that feeling. She looked at us and smiled and said that she believed that it was God too. Then she looked puzzled and said, "but why would God help me? I've only been learning about Him for 2 weeks, He should help you guys more than me because you know more about Him." This was my favorite part of the lesson because then I got to explain how much God loves her and that He loves her just as much as He loves me and because God loves her He will answer her. I told her that God had been with her, her whole life, she just didn't know it was Him. ah! Chinese people are so cool! I love teaching them this basic, simple, yet HUGE principle, God is our loving Heavenly Father. Never has that principle meant so much to me as it does now! I've taken this information for granted for way too long.

     I'm so grateful for all of these wonderful experiences. I feel like that's all my letters home say now. But it's so true and I could never repay my Heavenly Father for being a witness to so many wonderful blessings. I'll forever be grateful for a loving Father in Heaven who has helped me endure so that I could make it to this point and see these blessings. I'm so grateful that God knows more than I do and sees so clearly my future. I hope that I can trust in Him more throughout my life because of the experiences I've had here.

 

Love,

Sister Crane

      

The Chi-lect are back! watch out! Remember when I went on exchanges with Sister Hudson to Halifax and we taught like 8 guys from China at once?! Well apparently I'm a magnent for these asians because we just taught like 8 people from China here and it was awesome! I love chinese people. They are seriously THE coolest people I've taught ever. So humble. So willing. They are awesome! Ok so here's the story:

We're getting out of an appointment with Samantha (I'll talk about her later because that's an awesome story too!) and we had planned to knock her street. Before we pray we decide that we'll knock the left side of the street. As we pray I just get this small nudge that we should knock on the right side instead. I almost didn't act on it, that's how subtle it was, we go and knock on the first door and meet Xiao Jing. She hears our shpeal and then invites us into the living room. She then calls her roommate to come downstairs. Her roommates name is Elaine (english name, they are so funny some of them like english names and some of them don't). So we tell them that we want to teach them about God and Jesus Christ and ask them if they are interested. They both go, "yes! I know nothing about God!" Elaine then runs upstairs to grab a paper and a pencil to take notes. Xiao Jing asks if they need to go to church. haha it was AMAZING! We teach them about God and about who He is. That He's their loving Heavenly Father and that they can talk to Him any time any where. AH! Can I just tell you how cool it is to explain to someone who God is for their very first time?! It is so cool! The Spirit is so strong and you just get so excited for them! And they get excited to. They then offer for us to stay and have lunch with them. So we eat mushy noodles and cabbage and chewy pork. It was actually pretty good. (I know right, I'm actually saying that, the pickiest eater in the whole world! missions change you, I don't know)

THEN they invite us over for a party the next night. They were going to have some friends over and make more food and they wanted us to be able to try some of the food. So we went and the food was so good. Ribs and potato stuff and DUCK WING! G-ROSS! chewy super chewy! Ok but here's the best part so there are like 8 chinese people there and they each arrive at different times so picture this: Me and Sister Lorenc sitting there on the couch with duck wing in front of us and chinese Book of Mormon's in our hands. Each person walks in and says basically the same thing, "Why is your first name Sister?" It was hillarious. Then we would teach them the restoration and they would flip through the Book of Mormon. It was UNBELIEVEABLE! I mean seriously this is what missionary work should be like. You sit there and get fed and people just walk in one by one and you teach them. It seriously makes me giggle with excitement when I think about it. It's so cool! Being a missionary is the best. Ok so then get this we're like, "oh hey so the girl who lives across from you is getting baptized next Friday." They all rush to the window to see which house she lives in and then ask, "what's baptism?!" ah! GREAT QUESTION! So we explain it and before you know it they're all like (to their other friends that arrive) "you coming friday at 4?" "ummm ya I think I can come, where we going?" "to the church" "ok!" So we're going to have a row of chinese people at Sam's baptism. booya!

Which is a great segway into SAM'S GETTING BAPTIZED ON FRIDAY! woot! This girl. Oh my word. You need to meet her. She's the most bubbliest person on the face of the planet. She just won Miss something county and is going to be competing in Miss New Brunswick. She's got this southern accent because she's from the sticks. And she's that same girl I told you that I met on the bus and she came over to us and says, "hey! come over to my house tomorrow for speghetti and apple pie!" She's so awesome! She bore her testimony in church on Sunday and it's like she's been a member her whole life! It's insane. She is such a tender mercy. She even came teaching with us and after we extended the baptismal date to our investigator she told her whole conversion experience and then invited him to her baptism. Oh man it was the best ever. She's constantly like, "I'm so excited!" or "I'm pumped" whenever we bring up her baptism. It's nuts I tell you just nuts!

woah exhale. So this week was pretty much awesome! I just pray everything goes well for the baptism and that we get all 8 chinese people there! The gospel is TRUE! It is I know it. It changes peoples lives! It's so amazing! Hmmm any other updates? It's really cold....

I just feel so grateful for a loving Father in Heaven who knows His children. I know that nothing that I have done could ever make me deserve all of the blessings that He's pouring out on this area. It's a miracle. And it's only through God that it's possible. I'm so grateful for the scriptures and for the Savior. What a blessing to be sharing this message with everyone!

Love,

Sister Crane

Let it Snow!

 My companion likes to take pictures from the car.

Looks like somebody got new mattresses?

To All:

LET IT SNOW LET IT SNOW LET IT SNOW! Snow already? Yes indeed. We had our first snow storm yesterday. wahoo. The only thing I don't like about the snow is that we have to cancel some appointments that are far away sometimes because of it. Luckily by the end of yesterday it turned into slushy rain so we were able to get around safely. I can't imagine what it would have been like on a bike. yuck. Definatly counting my blessings on that one!

This week was awesome! Seriously it was. How do I possibly explain how awesome a mission is in an e-mail? I have trouble with it because you can't describe the amazing feeling you have serving the Lord. It's the best feeling ever! This week we had leadership training woot woot! That means that our whole zone gathered and President and Sister Simpson came to train us. We also had 2 guest speakers there too. One was the Stake President, President Pattison and the CES representative for our area, Brother Pilling. I was stolked to hear from Brother Pilling, since I want his job when I grow up! They gave wonderful trainings and we learned a lot more about institute and how important it is to get our investigators there. At the end of all of it we had a small testimony meeting. The Spirit was there in abundance and President got up at the end and the tears flowed as he expressed his love for us and how much God loves His missionaries. Of course I was balling by the end of it too. It was such a mix of emotions because this is the last leadership training I'll attend on my mission. I hate that. Can't I just be a missionary forever?!

Our investigators are sooooo awesome! Ah! I have so many stories and so little time so I'll just share a few with you! So we go last night to see the Thomas family. As you remember they are less active but a few of their kids haven't been baptized yet so we're working on getting their whole family closer to the Savior. So last night was awesome! We played that trust game where you fall and another person has to catch you and then shared the story of Peter and Jesus walking on the water and how he caught him but Peter had to have faith. At one point I began to bear my testimony of God and how much He loves them and wants to talk to them through prayer. BAM all eyes were on me. The kids were settled and no one broke eye contact. I know why, they felt the Spirit. As I spoke I said anything and everything that the Spirit whispered to my heart to say. After I ended Sister Lorenc then said, "I testify that everything that Sister Crane said is true." wow. how powerful. Seriously to work in complete unity and to see them actually obsorb the information. Wow. Ok so that's not even the BEST part. Then we ask them if they've been praying as a family like we challenged them to, and guess what? THEY DID! They prayed everyday as a family and they noticed a DIFFERENCE! AHHH! You could not wipe the smile off of our faces! They were even smiling about it too! They said they did better in school and their days were just better in general because of it! AH! I may not ever get to baptize an entire family on my mission but being able to see this family accomplish so much together is the same in value to me.

Samantha is so awesome! She came to stake conference and said that all of the talks made her get teary eyed, she loved it so much. We taught her a few times this week and last night as we had our lesson with her at the end we all just sighed and she goes, "I can't believe I met you girls on a bus!" haha. We all laughed and talked about how amazing it is that God directs us in our lives and places us in eachothers paths for a reason.

JEROME came to Institute! WHA? The crazy part is we didn't even tell him about it. A YSA who comes teaching with us a lot, Andrea, she texted him! And he CAME! ah! so cool. Oh and get this AFFE came teaching with us! haha That's right an INVESTIGATOR CAME TEACHING WITH US! We told her we had gotten a new chinese investigator and so she volunteered to come with us! It was so cool. She translated some of it and bore her testimony of church. ah! love it! This new chinese investigator, her name is Vivian. She's super cute. She's married and has a 5 year old son. She knows almost nothing about God. We met at the church and she told us that she had never really been inside a church before. When we started the lesson we taught her how to pray and at the end she even said her very first prayer! how cool is that?! To be able to witness someone's first prayer ever! ah! During the lesson it was soooooo cool. She read in Chinese the last 2 paragraphs of the introduction and after told us that she felt this warm feeling as she was reading it! And then she had trouble translating into english what she was trying to say but she said that her voice got softer as she read it and she didn't know why. We told her IT'S THE SPIRIT! It's true! And then we talk about baptism and I tell her about how she can be completely clean and follow God more fully and she gets big eyed and says, "oh I hope I can do that!" How sweet and precious are these experiences?! seriously!

I just know that this church is true! I know it! It's the neatest thing to be a missionary and to witness all of this! I feel so blessed and so grateful! President asked me this week if I'd like to stay for another 6 months, without even thinking I said, "YES!" He said he would like to have me for longer too but the brethren say that I need to get on with my life. haha. I guess that's true. I'm just so grateful for the wonderful blessing it is to serve! The best decision I've ever made ever was to serve a mission!

Love,

Sister Crane

 johnny dep

 

 I ran my companion over

 What we look like knocking in the rain.

Cool picture of the sky!

SAMANTHA'S GETTING BAPTIZED! yahoo! November 11th. You betcha! This is the girl who approached US on the bus and invited us over. She grew up going to church with her sister who's a member but had to wait till she was 18. Then we run into her on the bus and badabang badaboom. She's awesome. After we set a date we went back and showed her a calendar of what we were going to teach her to prepare her for the 11th. She looked at it and said, "only 3 weeks till I get baptized!" We kept saying how excited we were and she kept saying that no one was as excited as she was. Excitement was in abundance.

This week was awesome! WE GOT 2 NEW INVESTIGATORS! wahoo! Heather and Kathleen. Heather was a former that we called and set up an appointment with. She is so nice and I laughed my head off during her lesson. She's hillarious. Kathleen is so awesome too! She's one that we knocked into the other week and she was not interested at all. She said that she had lost her faith in God because of all of the bad stuff going on within organized religion. We started talking to her and testifying of the Book of Mormon and by the end of it we got an appointment! It was amazing the turn around. We went for the appointment and she said that she was interested in coming to church and in bringing her whole family. A FAMILY! ya buddy! I really hope we get to teach her whole family!

Sunday was such a great day. It was the primary presentation and those kids are so cute! No matter where you go the primary program is the best Sunday of the year. Afterward we had a few lessons. One was with Naoise (neesha). She's so awesome. She and her mom are going to start reading the scriptures everyday. She has a goal of finishing the Book of Mormon before her baptism. We also went to see the Thomas family. They are a less-active family in the ward. We brought a couple from the ward with us and played a game. We scattered a bunch of pictures of different parts of Joseph Smith's life around the room. They had to go find them and then put them in the correct order of what happened in his life. At the end we bore our testimonies of a living prophet and of the Savior. Everyone was paying attention and the Spirit could be felt. The members who came with us even bore their testimonies of how prayer helped them in their family and it was just amazing! We've gone over there before without members and if only members could see the difference they make! It's huge! really.

I can't believe October is almost over. The trees already look brown. It's amazing how the incredible color I saw last week has already faded. I'm so grateful we have a car! I don't know how I would do without one right about now. I'm so grateful to be here on a mission. It's such an incredible blessing! I love reading the Book of Mormon. These prophets are real! They actually lived! We have this incredible record that we get to read from and it was written for our day. It's amazing. I'm so grateful for the scriptures. I'm so grateful that I get to take the time to feast on them every day. What a great blessing.

Love,

Sister Crane

I wish I could describe how gorgeous this place is! It's unreal. I don't remember Nova Scotia being this amazing with it's fall colors! It's incredible! With colors like these I want to stay in New Brunswick....at least until it snows.....:)

Ok so I've got some crazy cool stories are you ready?! OK! This week we were knocking on a street....i know i know sounds really exciting right? right. So it's late at night and these are big houses we're knocking on. I hate knocking on big houses. I always feel like they are never going to say yes because they're not humbled by their circumstances. But these people were awesome! We got an appointment with the first person on the street for the next day which was Thursday. We're stolked, an appointment! how exciting! just you wait. So we go to the next few doors get a few potentials and then hit the next door and the woman says she's really busy but would like us to come back another time. We suggest the next day and BAM 2 appointments for tomorrow. Go to the next couple of houses meet another nice women who like most people is shocked that they allow girls to serve missions! We exist! It's true! Then we ask if we can teach her and she says not right now but we suggest tomorrow. BAM 3 appointments! Next couple of houses same thing, busy, not now, they suggest tomorrow! BAM 4 appointments. This goes on 2 more times and WABAM! 6 appointments for the next day all for people on the same street! the SAME street! what?! It was the coolest. We were giddy. It was awesome. The next day we go back 2 rescheduled, one actually happened, 1 cancelled and 2 weren't home BUT STILL it was pretty cool. When does that ever happen? We're still going to try and convert the whole street. Think about it! A whole ward could be formed on that street alone! I love being a missionary.

This week we've been doing a lot of member visits. We're trying to merge this whole line that stands between members and missionarys. It's hard in a ward because you just feel like another missionary. Branches it's a lot easier to feel needed. As we've gone from home to home I have just loved getting to know the members. They are incredible. They want to help with the work! It's awesome! One of them in particular was amazing: Brother and Sister Doskas.

Brother Doskas was in an accident 16 years ago that left him paraylzed. He was in the middle of a blizzard and went to check on the people who were in a 3 car pile up. As he was getting back to his car a truck slide hit him leaving his imprint on the car and then spun around and launched him in the middle of the road. The police found him an hour later. He had to have his fingers removed due to frost bite. I wish I could tell you or even begin to describe the feeling in their home, the faith I felt. It was tangible. I was moved to tears more than once just sitting and talking with them. It's like they don't have faith anymore they have knowledge. They don't believe their prayers will be answered, they KNOW. At one point Sister Doskas said to me, "With God by your side you can do anything." I believed her. She has absolute experience that attests to that. They are a witness to me that trials can refine you, if you let them. I hope never to forget my small interaction with them. It has impacted me greatly.

The work is moving forward! Jerome came to church and he hasn't been in 2 months! I was extatic! Now lets just get these people baptized! We will! I love being a missionary. I love this place that I get to serve in. The meritimers are hillarious, old fashioned, and odd sometimes but I want to be just like them. I can't imagine serving anywhere else and being this happy. This is my home and I will forever be grateful to have served here. What a privledge and a blessing!

Love,

Sister Crane

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

So yesterday I was a 1/2 hour away from the US border to get to Maine. It kind of weirded me out. I am freakishly close to the US and I didn't even know it. I need to invest in a better map.

Oh hey HAPPY THANKSGIVING! What was your day like yesterday? pretty normal...average... everyday sort of stuff? yupp our's too. But it was also Canadian Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving doesn't seem to be as big of a deal here as it is in the states. Not sure why. It seems like they don't have any huge traditions and it's not so much an all weekend event. It's really just a meal. And it's in OCTOBER. still don't fully understand that. I do like November better. When I go home I think I might just have 2 though. In fact yesterday we had just that 2 Thanksgivings. It was the best. At each one we all went around and said what we are grateful for. awwww. It was the best.

 

Guess what? I have a new companion! Sister Lorenc. Sister Davis left and it was sad to see her go. She didn't think that a lot of people would miss her but you wouldn't believe how many people at church said, "hey where's sister Davis? She didn't say good-bye?!" It's amazing the impact we can have on other people without knowing it. Anyways Sister Lorenc is great! She's from Hemet, California (southern somewhere). She's super cool and has been out for 9 months. It's nice having both of us know what we're doing, we can just jump in and get to work...and boy have we. Let me tell you about how a CAR changes EVERYTHING! It's unbelievable the amount of work we can get done, and the less planning we have to do with a car. It's nuts I tell you, nuts!

 

We've taught Naoise (Neesha) a few more times. She's 9 and super cute and ridiculously smart. Yesterday she asked us if she could pray and ask God when she should get baptized. woah. How cool is that? Jing and Chen are doing awesome too. They both came to church even though they are crazy stressed about school. It's so exciting to see them sacrifice for Heavenly Father and know that the blessings they receive will be so awesome! Oh hey have I told you about Bo?! He's a recent convert that got baptized in March and then was in China all summer so I only got to meet him last week. He's awesome! It's so exciting to have a Chinese convert so he can help all of our other chinese investigators, like Affe! Affe is so amazing, she said that she knows the church is true and that everything we've taught her is true. Now she just has to take the step and actually do something about it! How do you get some one to just take that leap of faith and go with what the Spirit has been telling them all a long?! I really hope she will!

 

The members here are awesome. You really should meet them. I wish I could bring some of them in my suit case home. We went and visited Sister Barton yesterday. She's an older woman and she's hillarious. We went over to see her with her visiting teachers, who are the cutest women ever. One of them is Sister Peck. She's fantastic. She's gives us rides in her convertible, has the best earings, and is obsessed with betty boop. One time I asked Sister Peck if she ever wore the same outfit twice and she replied, "not if I can help it!" So if you can imagine me with these 3 adorable women and what does the conversation turn to? Golden Girls. haha. These people crack me up. I can't wait to go home and be a visiting teacher, it'll be so much easier than being a missionary.

 

I love doing this work. It's the best work ever. I love that I get to do this work. That I get to be apart of the process of helping others come closer to Christ. I'm grateful to be a representative of Him. I love the days where I get so lost in the work I realize that I haven't thought about myself all day. It's the neatest feeling to know that you've been so immersed in others needs that you didn't have time for yourself, yet you are so happy because you were in the service of others all day. We are so blessed to have the gospel. I am so grateful to share this marvelous gospel with others!

Love,

Sister Crane

These are pictures from this week at a members home. The Kadisch's, they are originally from Austria. We had authentic Schnitzel. Which is not a dessert...like I thought it was...but veal...well in our case pork thank goodness. She has this incredible garden! With amazing things in it. One of which is in a bowl, they are ground cherries. Nothing like them anywhere. so good. enjoy!

October 3rd

Transfers! I'm STAYING ....but...I have a new companion! :( It totally bites. I didn't think anything would change! But ALL of the sisters got moved. And guess what?! They created a sisters area in New Foundland! If you're not freaking out, that's because you don't know where New Foundland is! You have to take a plane to get there and it's freezing! I actually feel really jipped that I didn't get to open it there. I've been dying to go. Lame. Oh well. Sister Hudson (my MTC comp) gets to open it so I'm excited for her....slightly jealous though. :) Sooooo my new companion will be Sister Lorenc (pronounced Lorence). Transfers are on Thursday. Sister Davis and I are totally bummed we don't get the full 6 months together (after all that's how long I've been with any of my companions) but I am excited to have sister Lorenc here. Sister Davis is going to Halifax where she'll ride more buses! yay! oh and guess what?!.....WE'RE GETTING A CAR! no more bikes! no more bikes! no more bikes! ...sorry just felt like it was worth chanting. poor sister Davis. right when we get a car and she goes to a bus area. She'll love it though. Soooooo onward ever onward we go.

As for this week it was delightful. Christmas aka General Conference was the best! Jerome watched 2 sessions! I think he really liked it too. I loved all of them. I really loved Sister Dalton's talk about how to raise a daughter. It was so bold and perfect. We also got 3 NEW INVESTIGATORS! wahooo! remember that dry spell we had? see ya later! We have been so blessed this week. Let me start by telling you the best story ever that every missionary wants to have!

We're on the bus and all of a sudden this girl comes and moves seats to come sit by us. She excitedly says to us, "Hi! I'm Mormon! I totally want to have you guys over for dinner!" uhhh ok...!! We find out her name is Samantha and set up to see her the next day. So THEN we go to her house for dinner and she's adorable. She's 18, just working right now, and has our dinner all ready. We start talking and she tells us that she's not baptized but her sister is a member and she's grown up going to our church and has always wanted to be baptized! We haven't even really started with our meal when she says, "Ok so I'd really like to get baptized can you start teaching me? I want to know everything." WHA?! Who is this girl! I promise she's not crazy. Sister Davis and I had to leave the room to grab our scriptures. We get to our bags and look at eachother and do a silent freak out. It was the best. Pretty sure we danced all the way out of her house. We're teaching her again tonight and I can't wait.

Another new investigator is from Iran. Kayvon. He's really cool. We've been teaching a lot of Iranian's lately. They are always so intrigued by what we believe in and how our church differs from other christian faiths.

Lastly our 3rd investigator is a 9 year old! Naoise (pronounced Neesha...it's Irish-galic or something) She's adorable. Her parents are active members of the ward, Naoise just didn't feel ready to get baptized at 8 from what I understand. We had our first lesson on Sunday and this girl is brilliant. I'm looking forward to our lessons for sure!

This week we also had interviews. Afterward President and Sister Simpson took us out for some good old mexican. First mexican I've had in Canada....but seriously...it was pretty good too...nothing like the states but I'll take what I've got. I love the Simpson's. They are my favorite. The nicest people you'll ever meet.

So there you go folks. Do you believe me now when I said it was a delightful week?! Delightful indeed. Well except for change. Ugh. I hate change. Oh well. I'll get over it. I'm so grateful for the 3 months I've had with Sister Davis. I seriously do not know what I'll do without her. I feel like I barely know the members and I don't know how to navigate my way around...ESPECIALLY in a car! I can't imagine if she was leaving me with bikes and the bus route i i I! that would have been awful. Counting my many blessings there! Keep me in your prayers this week! Transfers are always a little scary. The church is true though so it's ok.

Love,

Sister Crane

September 26th, 2011

Almost. You know when Paul teaches King Agrippa and at the end of this beautiful conversion story that Paul tells King Agrippa says, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." That was our week. So we're improving right? We went from sq 1 to almost. I hope this week will be a definately!

This week we taught a lot of people who were close to being investigators, or close to changing their lives, close to gaining a testimony, but because of that darn agency, they just won't do it. Dag nabit all. We taught this less-active family, forinstance, who are now questioning if God exists yet they aren't willing to take another chance and find out that He is there. If only they could know the blessings they and their family would receive by just knowing that God is there and real and by acting on it. We taught one guy named Robbie. We had knocked on his door and he told us to come back another time and so we did and we got to teach him. The lesson went really well until he told us that he couldn't read the Book of Mormon because he had so many other things to read and to do. We asked him what he thinks he would gain from reading it and knowing that it's true. He agreed that he would gain a lot, yet he wasn't willing to do it. He even sat there for a while in silence pondering whether he should or not. I don't know about you but when I see a delicious looking chocolate cake I don't question, I know I'm going to eat it because it will taste so good! Oh that darn agency.

We do have investigators that are doing really great though! Let me tell you about them. Jing and Chen are amazing! They are crazy busy with school yet they make time for our visits. They are waiting to be baptized until they can get married in China, but we're trying to get them to see that they don't have to wait to be baptized, they can have those blessings now! We taught them seperately this week and asked them each why they wanted to be baptized. Their answers were incredible. Jing said, "I want to because #1 it says that I need to in the Book of Mormon and the Bible and so that I can have the Spirit and #2 because it will wash away my sins and the sacrament doesn't mean anything to me until after I get baptized." After she said that all I could say in reply was, "wow, that was the best answer ever." haha When we asked Chen why he wanted to be baptized he held up the Book of Mormon and said, "because I trust this." Simple, straight to the point. ah! They are so amazing, I hope that i get to witness their baptisms.

The Thomas family is doing well! We went and saw them yesterday and taught them how to pay tithing. I brought my little coin purse with 10 pennies in it, poured it out and told them I wanted to pay my tithing but didn't know how. They gladly helped me and filled out the tithing slip. It's so much more fun teaching kids sometimes :) At the end we gave them this giant poster we had made, on it, it has a chart for their reading and praying every day. They get to put stickers on each day that they read their scriptures and pray and they get a gold star for coming to church. Andrew, the youngest was so excited. He immediately started putting a gold star on the poster even though the week hadn't started yet. When we got to the car after the lesson he came running out to tell us that he had put the poster up already. Kids are so smart. In the lesson I asked this question, "what can we give to God?" It was going to be a retorical question because I was trying to make a point that we can't give God money and so tithing isn't about money, but immediately Adam and Andrew raised their hands in the air. Adam said we can give God love and Andrew said we can give him our sins. Woah. pretty incredible answers.

The best part about being a missionary...ehh let me change that, ONE of the best things is that people give you stuff. I love it. They think, "hmmm I have no use for that, the missionaries must want it...hmmm I won't eat that, let's give it to the missionaries!" On Wednesday it was like that all day. We went to help out at the community kitchen and one of the volunteers there just happened to make a chocolate cake from scratch and thought we would like to take the leftovers home. Costco also recently opened up in Fredericton so they donate a truck load of bread to the kitchen every day. The staff invited us to take some bread that had just arrived. Saweet! ...except...we're on bikes. How do we carry all of this stuff? I have no clue, but we made it work. Jerome then came to our appointment with samosas. ya buddy. Samosas are really popular here, they are these triangled shaped fried things with meat in them. not too shabby. It's the best, our cupboards were full and I was full with chocolate cake. The perfect combination.

I feel like as my mission is getting closer and closer to ending I'm trying to cram in all of the knowledge I possibly can. I love reading the scriptures. I love how much more I know the scriptures since being on a mission. Sometimes I don't feel all that different from when I left to now. One thing I do know is that I'm so grateful for the knowledge I've received since being here. It's exciting learning about the gospel and seeing my testimony grow through that knowledge and light. I can't wait for general conference! It feels like just yesterday that I was watching it last fall in Truro for my first conference on my mission. Pretty crazy. Aren't the leaders of the church so amazing?! I can't wait! Have a great week!



Love,

Sister Crane

These are pictures of the ride back from Lincoln and a pic with a member, Sis. Theriault.

September 19th

Well I have been sufficiently humbled. Our teaching pool is at an all time low and I couldn't be more excited to get to work! This week was rough to say the least. We dropped a lot of people. Our district leader was stunned at our numbers. We were too. But man oh man have I learned a lot in just one short week. You ever have a day like that? Where nothing seems to go right? That was our week. Cancellation after cancellation. None of our investigators came to church. It was so heartbreaking. When Sister Davis and I had our weekly planning session it was a wake up call. After inspiration and prayer and work, we have a vision of what we want to accomplish here. We think that the Lord is telling us that we need to loose ourselves in the work and FIND people to teach. So we're off and it's an exciting adventure.
On Wednesday we decided to make the brave attempt of biking back from Lincoln. Lincoln is a bordering town to Fredericton. It takes about 15 minutes on the bus to get there. Biking back seemed like it wouldn't be too bad. WRONGO. We left and it was getting dark fast. Then the rain came. Yike. So we're biking down and it's freezing pouring rain and dark and cars are zooming by and I'm thinking, "doesn't it say in the handbook to avoid riding after dark?!" ah! We keep forgetting that the summer is over and so it gets dark earlier every day. By december it will be dark by 4pm. We made it safely but man on man was I sore and tired and wet. I never really believed that you could get sick from being out in the rain, now I know. I had a bad cold the rest of the week because of it. Lesson learned? nope
The next day I have a nasty cold and we still have to bike. For some reason it's WINTER here. Why? I have no clue! I thought it was september not november. It got to +2 degrees celcius. That's cold. why? why Canada? At the end of the night if we're working down town we have to take a bus that gets us up the hill but it drops us off to a spot that's a 15 minute bike ride to our house. So here we are biking at night AGAIN and as we get on our bikes (literally) it begins to rain. So we bike and bike and bike and the rain gets nasty, then comes the wind and I'm thinking, "I'm sick! gah!" The worst part is that I'm wearing glasses. Rain + glasses = can't see. For the rest of the bike ride I'm staring at the red light beaming from Sister Davis' bike and thinking, " keep your eye on the light" everything else was a blurr. We made it home. Lesson learned? I sure hope so.
The nice thing about the cold though is that people think we're nuts and so they let us in. This one lady we knocked into started laughing and said, "It's dark! and it's cold! What are you girls doing out here?" I said, "we're here to talk to you!" She was nice enough to let us in the doorway and we talked with her for a bit. We've had some really interesting discussions with people lately. It's amazing the diversity of opinions and views that people have in this city. Most people make up what they believe in and then either look for a church that comes closest to that or don't go to a church at all. The best excuse ever at a door that I have EVER had of why they can't talk to us was given by this lady yesterday who just had jaw surgery and her mouth was wired shut. You win. Every one else your excuses are lame compared to that.
I'll briefly share one of the interesting discussions I had with someone this week. She was from Scotland, an older lady and we knocked on her door. Immediately as I looked in her eyes there was something missing lack of light, or the Spirit in other words. We began to talk and she said that she had no belief in God. I asked her what she thought our everyday actions led to. Nothing, she said. "we are atoms, my dear, and so atoms we will become, maybe my atoms will evolve into a horse or something." I told her I thought that was so sad. I asked her if there was anyone in her life that she would like to be with forever. No, was her reply. She kept saying that we had so much to learn and needed to experience more things in life. I agreed and told her that I certainly hope I keep learning and have experiences because there is so much for me to learn! She laughed at my comment and I explained that although we don't know everything what we do know we are sure of and that is that there is a God. After the discussion she actually said she enjoyed talking with us and wished us luck, but I left so sad that she wouldn't accept and the truth was starring her in the face. Sister Davis had sad something earlier to me that I thought was really profound. God sends out missionaries because we don't know everything. We don't need to. That's the whole point. We just need to know enough. Through small and simple things are great things brought to pass. In D&C section 1 it even talks about that how the simple things of the earth will break down the great and mighty. I do know that God lives and knows us personally and that is enough to teach His word.
The Gospel is incredible! Ah! It's so amazing! Do you ever have an "Ah-Hah!" moment in the gospel? I love those. It passes all my understanding how God could have such a marvelous and perfect plan. It's brilliant. I'm so grateful to know what I know. It's so cool! for lack of a better word. Lately in my scriptures I've been highlighting the basic principles of the gospel, faith, repentance, baptism, recieving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. Do you know how many times it says those words in the scriptures? So many! And they are rarely if ever mentioned on their own, one of those words is usually coupled with another because one leads to another. ie: faith leads to repentance, or baptism is incomplete without the gift of the Holy Ghost. It's so cool! How could any of this stuff be made up? It's just not possible.
I am so excited to go out and be those fishers and hunters like it says in Jeremiah 16:16 and find these people to teach! I'm ready! I'm so grateful that God humbles us and brings us low so that we can see that He is the one who is raising us up. It's all about Him. Without Him we could not do this. The church is true! This is the most important work that I could be doing and it's so wonderful!
Love,
Sister Crane

Delicious Donairs!!

Here's some pics with my companion. The thing I'm eating is a donair. They're not FDA approved in the US. Something about the way they process the meat. Sketchy.

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