8 years ago
Monday, January 31, 2011
January 31, 2011
Craziest week of my life! Wowzer. So it goes a little something like this.
Tuesday: went to training meeting in Halifax, it snows and roads are bad so we stay with Sister Hudson(MTC comp.) in the city. Really fun but super exhausted because the next morning we had to drive back for appointments.
Then I find out my new companion has been delayed so I'll be going to the city that next day.
Wednesday: Turns out I will NOT be going to the city and instead transfers are postponed because of bad weather and the delay of the new missionaries.
Thursday: I will be serving in Halifax on friday because transfers are STILL delayed
Friday: PYSCH! I will NOT be serving in Halifax I'll be getting a new companion Sister Brandley for a week until my companion comes
Saturday: PYSCH! Sister Brandley is leaving after only 24 hours and Sister Glenn my new companion is here!
*sigh*
It was so confusing. But not because of lack of organization, it was just because the new missionaries kept getting delayed. SOOOO my new companion Sister Glenn is here! yay! Apparently they got stuck in New York because of plane issues and then they ended up going to Queens and working out there for a day. Cool huh? So really she started her mission in Queens New York. I'm just glad she's finally here! Sister Glenn is from Murrieta California (an hour away from San Diego) She is the youngest of 4 and they are all boys and get this little crazy fact: her brother is the lead singer in a band called Neon Trees and they have the #1 single in the US right now. It's called Animal. Pretty sure I remember singing along to the radio to that song last year, and who would of thought that I would be serving with his sister! CRAZY! crazy cool really. Apparently the whole band is LDS. Isn't that awesome?! I was so excited about it and told her I would eventually get over be star struck but don't count on it :) Anyways she's awesome and is so willing to just get out there and teach. I love it! Apparently the MTC is changing a TON and so she got the opportunity to teach WAY more than I did. It's so fun to go out and work with someone new because I see everything with new eyes. I think we'll work hard and have a lot of fun together.
In other news MATT IS BAPTIZED! yay! I can't believe it! 4 baptisms in Truro in the past 6 months that I've been here. It's so exciting. I know we can do waaaay more too. I just need to work a bit harder and it'll happen. Truro is so ready to grow. The baptism was wonderful. Steven baptized him and right before the baptism Loni (Matt's sister) made a joke about holding him under longer to get rid of all the sins. Little did we know Steven would take it so literally. He took matt down but his arm was still above the water so we were all saying go all the way down, and so he did, but then he didn't pull him back up. We had to tell him "bring him back up!" haha oh dear. It still was wonderful. Then Steven baptized his 8 year old son Cole. That was awesome. On Sunday when they were confirmed, I looked over at the whole row that was filled with their family and I just thought about how when we first came there that row was empty and now it's full! I just love it. The branch was incomplete with out them and it's still incomplete without so many others that we need to find!
We've been teaching Amy and Alyssa. Amy is the mom of 3 little girls and 1 boy. Fabian, her husband is less active. We committed Amy last week to be baptized on March 12th, and before I could even get out the words, Alyssa said with excitement she wanted to get baptized too. She's 9 and I thought it would be best for her to talk to her parents first, so hopefully this week they'll all say yes! Going over to their house is so much fun. It reminds me of being at Traci and Chad's. I love it. One of the girls, Victoria, who's 4 came up to me while I was teaching the plan of salvation and said, "why is this taking so long?" We all laughed pretty hard. Teaching little kids is so humbling, it makes you really think about teaching simply.
So Sister Peaden is gone, it was really sad to see her go and she was sad too. We both loved this area and grew to love it together. I know she'll love her new area though, I've heard great things about it. I'm excited to have, in a way, a fresh start, and to get going and work as much as we can in Truro, despite the cold. On to February! yay! one of the coldest months here! Thank you for your prayers and letters they help uplift me more than you know!
love,
Sister Crane
Tuesday: went to training meeting in Halifax, it snows and roads are bad so we stay with Sister Hudson(MTC comp.) in the city. Really fun but super exhausted because the next morning we had to drive back for appointments.
Then I find out my new companion has been delayed so I'll be going to the city that next day.
Wednesday: Turns out I will NOT be going to the city and instead transfers are postponed because of bad weather and the delay of the new missionaries.
Thursday: I will be serving in Halifax on friday because transfers are STILL delayed
Friday: PYSCH! I will NOT be serving in Halifax I'll be getting a new companion Sister Brandley for a week until my companion comes
Saturday: PYSCH! Sister Brandley is leaving after only 24 hours and Sister Glenn my new companion is here!
*sigh*
It was so confusing. But not because of lack of organization, it was just because the new missionaries kept getting delayed. SOOOO my new companion Sister Glenn is here! yay! Apparently they got stuck in New York because of plane issues and then they ended up going to Queens and working out there for a day. Cool huh? So really she started her mission in Queens New York. I'm just glad she's finally here! Sister Glenn is from Murrieta California (an hour away from San Diego) She is the youngest of 4 and they are all boys and get this little crazy fact: her brother is the lead singer in a band called Neon Trees and they have the #1 single in the US right now. It's called Animal. Pretty sure I remember singing along to the radio to that song last year, and who would of thought that I would be serving with his sister! CRAZY! crazy cool really. Apparently the whole band is LDS. Isn't that awesome?! I was so excited about it and told her I would eventually get over be star struck but don't count on it :) Anyways she's awesome and is so willing to just get out there and teach. I love it! Apparently the MTC is changing a TON and so she got the opportunity to teach WAY more than I did. It's so fun to go out and work with someone new because I see everything with new eyes. I think we'll work hard and have a lot of fun together.
In other news MATT IS BAPTIZED! yay! I can't believe it! 4 baptisms in Truro in the past 6 months that I've been here. It's so exciting. I know we can do waaaay more too. I just need to work a bit harder and it'll happen. Truro is so ready to grow. The baptism was wonderful. Steven baptized him and right before the baptism Loni (Matt's sister) made a joke about holding him under longer to get rid of all the sins. Little did we know Steven would take it so literally. He took matt down but his arm was still above the water so we were all saying go all the way down, and so he did, but then he didn't pull him back up. We had to tell him "bring him back up!" haha oh dear. It still was wonderful. Then Steven baptized his 8 year old son Cole. That was awesome. On Sunday when they were confirmed, I looked over at the whole row that was filled with their family and I just thought about how when we first came there that row was empty and now it's full! I just love it. The branch was incomplete with out them and it's still incomplete without so many others that we need to find!
We've been teaching Amy and Alyssa. Amy is the mom of 3 little girls and 1 boy. Fabian, her husband is less active. We committed Amy last week to be baptized on March 12th, and before I could even get out the words, Alyssa said with excitement she wanted to get baptized too. She's 9 and I thought it would be best for her to talk to her parents first, so hopefully this week they'll all say yes! Going over to their house is so much fun. It reminds me of being at Traci and Chad's. I love it. One of the girls, Victoria, who's 4 came up to me while I was teaching the plan of salvation and said, "why is this taking so long?" We all laughed pretty hard. Teaching little kids is so humbling, it makes you really think about teaching simply.
So Sister Peaden is gone, it was really sad to see her go and she was sad too. We both loved this area and grew to love it together. I know she'll love her new area though, I've heard great things about it. I'm excited to have, in a way, a fresh start, and to get going and work as much as we can in Truro, despite the cold. On to February! yay! one of the coldest months here! Thank you for your prayers and letters they help uplift me more than you know!
love,
Sister Crane
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
January 24th
EXCITING NEWS ALL AROUND! ok first Chad is now a baptized member of the church! yay! Next is I'm training! Unfortunatly this means that Sister Peaden is leaving, but she's going to the "valley area" which is gorgeous and she's really excited about it. I get my new companion Thursday morning. I don't know her name or anything about her. Tomorrow I'm going up to Halifax for a meeting with President on how to train a greenie. I'm really excited because I just found out that my MTC companion Sister Hudson is training too so we'll be at the meeting together. It's really neat to have someone that is going through the same experiences as me at the same time, we started together and leave together too. :)
So lets talk about the REALLY exciting news! Chad! yay! The baptism was incredible. The Spirit was felt so strongly. We opened it up with the hymn "As Zion's Youth in Latter Days" which was perfect! And then one of the speakers, Sister Mahoney quoted that song and directed it to Chad. Everyone was in tears, including Chad's Mom, Darlene. She is so proud of him. Yesterday in church she told me that she couldn't even describe how good she felt to know that he has a place he belongs and to see him be so at home in the church. The Spirit was also really strong as the youth all sang "when I am baptized." and then especially as I saw him go down into the water. I still can't even believe it all happened, and so smoothly too. It must be because Chad was sooooo ready. He really is a good example for all of us.
Some other exciting news is that we have 5 new investigators! What the? I know it's nuts. This does not happen every week so I'm really excited. Especially because after a baptism you feel like, "ok, he's baptized, now who do I teach?" One of them is a 17 year old named Brenden. We've had 2 lessons and he committed to being baptized March 5th! cool huh?! Another one of them is Greg. He's older and seems that he's been looking for truth for a while now. He's an avid reader and we met with him twice and then he said he wanted a week before we met again to really dive into the Book of Mormon first. When we gave him a copy, the first thing he did was look to see how many pages long it was and then said, "ok so a little over 500, sounds good." haha We committed him to read the intro and the testimony of the witnesses like we always do and he said, "oh I'm going to read a lot more than that." Ya that's rare. And amazing!
Our other investigators are Amy and Alyssa. They are married to a less active member. Amy is the Mom and Alyssa is 9. Alyssa is so smart! Seriously she's brilliant. The whole lesson she paid attention and gave the occassional head nod. And then at the end she asked questions like, "when President Monson dies, we'll he be in the Book of Mormon?" It was such a good question because she knew that the Book of Mormon had the writtings of prophets in it, so why wouldn't our current prophet be in it? haha When I teach her I pretend I'm teaching Janai or Abby and think about if Alyssa was my niece how would I explain the gospel to her. I'm really excited for that family. Oh and one last new investigator is Keon. This is a really cool story. So we knocked into Keon a few months ago and he really wanted us to come back, but everytime we did he wasn't home. So on Tuesday we wrote down in our planners to stop by his house, but didn't have time and instead went to an appointment with Casey and Eytan, and guess who was there sitting in their living room?! Keon! It was insane. Apparently Casey and he are friends and he's staying with them for a few weeks until he gets a new apartment. Wowzer. The Lord does work in mysterious ways. Obviously I was excited, so much so that at the end of the lesson he said, "I don't think I've ever met someone who smiles as much as you do." Hopefully that's not a bad thing. :)
What a week. Seriously it's been amazing. We've been so busy I just love it! I hope it doesn't stop! I think all of these baptisms is making the branch members really excited too, which is so awesome. Matt is getting baptized on Saturday and remember his brother in law, Steven who we taught and he got baptized in November? He's going to baptize Matt and his son Cole who's 8! I can't even believe it. From our very first appointment with Steven we envisioned him receiving the Priesthood and baptizing his son and now he gets to baptize Matt too. Ah! It's so cool! We had a lesson with them yesterday and Steven kept practicing the wording and had his gospel principles book all marked on the chapter on baptism. :)
Truro is incredible! I feel so priveledged to stay here. Oh and one last really cool story! So we found out last week that the Meisner family (a less active family who we've been working with for months now) is moving to Kingston. And guess where Sister Peaden is getting transferred to? KINGSTON! what?! I know I'm in shock. It's pretty cool. I know that the Lord is in charge of this work. I also know that the only reason I'm having this much success is because of your prayers. I've never really felt prayers before my mission, but I really can feel them now. Everytime someone says, "yes, come back" or "yes I'll keep that commitment" or seeing someone get baptized like Chad on Saturday, I think, "It wasn't me" because really it's all of your prayers. Thank you so much!
It's freezing here by the way, -19 and it's supposed to be -27 soon. FAN-tastic! As we walked to the library this morning I literally felt the inside of my nose freeze (sorry if that's too graphic) but it's so cold! And the windshield makes it feel like -27 already. yuck. oh well. I'm just so grateful for all of the appointments we've been having that keep us out of the cold! yay! Well have a great week! Say a prayer for the new Sister if you'd like, I know it's a hard transition, and I really hope I help her make it as smooth as possible. Thank you for your letters and prayers!
love,
Sister Crane
So lets talk about the REALLY exciting news! Chad! yay! The baptism was incredible. The Spirit was felt so strongly. We opened it up with the hymn "As Zion's Youth in Latter Days" which was perfect! And then one of the speakers, Sister Mahoney quoted that song and directed it to Chad. Everyone was in tears, including Chad's Mom, Darlene. She is so proud of him. Yesterday in church she told me that she couldn't even describe how good she felt to know that he has a place he belongs and to see him be so at home in the church. The Spirit was also really strong as the youth all sang "when I am baptized." and then especially as I saw him go down into the water. I still can't even believe it all happened, and so smoothly too. It must be because Chad was sooooo ready. He really is a good example for all of us.
Some other exciting news is that we have 5 new investigators! What the? I know it's nuts. This does not happen every week so I'm really excited. Especially because after a baptism you feel like, "ok, he's baptized, now who do I teach?" One of them is a 17 year old named Brenden. We've had 2 lessons and he committed to being baptized March 5th! cool huh?! Another one of them is Greg. He's older and seems that he's been looking for truth for a while now. He's an avid reader and we met with him twice and then he said he wanted a week before we met again to really dive into the Book of Mormon first. When we gave him a copy, the first thing he did was look to see how many pages long it was and then said, "ok so a little over 500, sounds good." haha We committed him to read the intro and the testimony of the witnesses like we always do and he said, "oh I'm going to read a lot more than that." Ya that's rare. And amazing!
Our other investigators are Amy and Alyssa. They are married to a less active member. Amy is the Mom and Alyssa is 9. Alyssa is so smart! Seriously she's brilliant. The whole lesson she paid attention and gave the occassional head nod. And then at the end she asked questions like, "when President Monson dies, we'll he be in the Book of Mormon?" It was such a good question because she knew that the Book of Mormon had the writtings of prophets in it, so why wouldn't our current prophet be in it? haha When I teach her I pretend I'm teaching Janai or Abby and think about if Alyssa was my niece how would I explain the gospel to her. I'm really excited for that family. Oh and one last new investigator is Keon. This is a really cool story. So we knocked into Keon a few months ago and he really wanted us to come back, but everytime we did he wasn't home. So on Tuesday we wrote down in our planners to stop by his house, but didn't have time and instead went to an appointment with Casey and Eytan, and guess who was there sitting in their living room?! Keon! It was insane. Apparently Casey and he are friends and he's staying with them for a few weeks until he gets a new apartment. Wowzer. The Lord does work in mysterious ways. Obviously I was excited, so much so that at the end of the lesson he said, "I don't think I've ever met someone who smiles as much as you do." Hopefully that's not a bad thing. :)
What a week. Seriously it's been amazing. We've been so busy I just love it! I hope it doesn't stop! I think all of these baptisms is making the branch members really excited too, which is so awesome. Matt is getting baptized on Saturday and remember his brother in law, Steven who we taught and he got baptized in November? He's going to baptize Matt and his son Cole who's 8! I can't even believe it. From our very first appointment with Steven we envisioned him receiving the Priesthood and baptizing his son and now he gets to baptize Matt too. Ah! It's so cool! We had a lesson with them yesterday and Steven kept practicing the wording and had his gospel principles book all marked on the chapter on baptism. :)
Truro is incredible! I feel so priveledged to stay here. Oh and one last really cool story! So we found out last week that the Meisner family (a less active family who we've been working with for months now) is moving to Kingston. And guess where Sister Peaden is getting transferred to? KINGSTON! what?! I know I'm in shock. It's pretty cool. I know that the Lord is in charge of this work. I also know that the only reason I'm having this much success is because of your prayers. I've never really felt prayers before my mission, but I really can feel them now. Everytime someone says, "yes, come back" or "yes I'll keep that commitment" or seeing someone get baptized like Chad on Saturday, I think, "It wasn't me" because really it's all of your prayers. Thank you so much!
It's freezing here by the way, -19 and it's supposed to be -27 soon. FAN-tastic! As we walked to the library this morning I literally felt the inside of my nose freeze (sorry if that's too graphic) but it's so cold! And the windshield makes it feel like -27 already. yuck. oh well. I'm just so grateful for all of the appointments we've been having that keep us out of the cold! yay! Well have a great week! Say a prayer for the new Sister if you'd like, I know it's a hard transition, and I really hope I help her make it as smooth as possible. Thank you for your letters and prayers!
love,
Sister Crane
Monday, January 17, 2011
January 17th
To all:
It's freezing! This morning it was -14 degrees celsius and tonight it's supposed to get to -17. yuck. Oh well I'll survive it! Plus I only have one real winter here, so might as well enjoy it. This week has flown by! I love it when the days just blurr together because we're so busy. On Saturday we had back to back appointments for the majority of the day, and today and tomorrow is the same thing. The best part of Saturday was only one appointment fell through, usually half do, but we were extremely blessed. I hope today and tommorrow go just as well.
We met with Chad everyday last week and are going to meet with him every day this week to prepare him for his baptism this Saturday. I'm so excited for him. He's so easy to teach, he's been going to church for so long that he knows it's true, it's almost like our lessons are just a formality to get him to baptism. He's having one of his friends in Young Men's baptize him and the youth are going to sing a musical number. The members were the missionaries in his case. I feel like I've done nothing, the members helped him get to where he is 100%. It's amazing. If only all missionary work was like this, then I'd be out of a job!
We had our first district meeting of the transfer, we normally have them sooner but it got delayed because of bad weather. What's crazy is that our district leader came out a transfer after me, and he's training, and the other 2 Elders, one came out the same time as me and he's training. So Sister Peaden and I are the oldest in the district. It's weird. All of the other missionaries I've worked with were going home pretty soon and well, are home. But I really do like have newer missionaries in our District, they are so focused and they work really hard, it helps inspire me and make me want to work that much harder.
Our other investigators are doing well. Casey and Eytan have been consistently coming out to church which is exciting and Matt is all set to be baptized on the 29th. I hope I don't get transferred before then, but it may happen. Jerry is still hung up on Anti stuff. It really stinks. We only saw him once last week and he said for sure he'd be at church and then didn't come. What stinks even more is that every talk and lesson we had went along with all of the questions he keeps asking us. They were on false prophets, Joseph Smith, receiving answers to prayers, etc. It's so sad when you see someone's potential, but then they excercise their agency and miss out on the blessings of coming to church. We really love Jerry and Michelle and hopefully with a bit of patience on our part, one day he'll receive those answers that he wants so badly.
Sister Peaden got to borrow a flute from a member here and we played a musical number "Beautiful Savior" from the primary book in Sacrament Meeting. I think the branch enjoyed it and Sister Peaden was pretty happy she got to play the flute! Also a member who teaches Yoga is letting us take a yoga class from her on Mondays and Wednesdays, she still has to get it approved, but we tried it out this morning and it was awesome. I think it will really help with my back problems.
This week I feel especially grateful for personal revelation. I was having trouble answering one of our investigators questions and had been pondering it and praying about it for a few days now, then this morning during personal study I found the answer. I searched the scriptures and used cross references and then pondered a lot and I got the answer I needed. It was amazing. I have a testimony of pondering on the words of the scriptures. It makes a huge difference. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father knows us each so personally and so well that he answers our prayers. Sometimes we have to do a little work on our part to receive that answer, but the answer will always come. The church is true! I know it! Have a wonderful week and thank you so much for your letters and prayers, I really am grateful for them!
It's freezing! This morning it was -14 degrees celsius and tonight it's supposed to get to -17. yuck. Oh well I'll survive it! Plus I only have one real winter here, so might as well enjoy it. This week has flown by! I love it when the days just blurr together because we're so busy. On Saturday we had back to back appointments for the majority of the day, and today and tomorrow is the same thing. The best part of Saturday was only one appointment fell through, usually half do, but we were extremely blessed. I hope today and tommorrow go just as well.
We met with Chad everyday last week and are going to meet with him every day this week to prepare him for his baptism this Saturday. I'm so excited for him. He's so easy to teach, he's been going to church for so long that he knows it's true, it's almost like our lessons are just a formality to get him to baptism. He's having one of his friends in Young Men's baptize him and the youth are going to sing a musical number. The members were the missionaries in his case. I feel like I've done nothing, the members helped him get to where he is 100%. It's amazing. If only all missionary work was like this, then I'd be out of a job!
We had our first district meeting of the transfer, we normally have them sooner but it got delayed because of bad weather. What's crazy is that our district leader came out a transfer after me, and he's training, and the other 2 Elders, one came out the same time as me and he's training. So Sister Peaden and I are the oldest in the district. It's weird. All of the other missionaries I've worked with were going home pretty soon and well, are home. But I really do like have newer missionaries in our District, they are so focused and they work really hard, it helps inspire me and make me want to work that much harder.
Our other investigators are doing well. Casey and Eytan have been consistently coming out to church which is exciting and Matt is all set to be baptized on the 29th. I hope I don't get transferred before then, but it may happen. Jerry is still hung up on Anti stuff. It really stinks. We only saw him once last week and he said for sure he'd be at church and then didn't come. What stinks even more is that every talk and lesson we had went along with all of the questions he keeps asking us. They were on false prophets, Joseph Smith, receiving answers to prayers, etc. It's so sad when you see someone's potential, but then they excercise their agency and miss out on the blessings of coming to church. We really love Jerry and Michelle and hopefully with a bit of patience on our part, one day he'll receive those answers that he wants so badly.
Sister Peaden got to borrow a flute from a member here and we played a musical number "Beautiful Savior" from the primary book in Sacrament Meeting. I think the branch enjoyed it and Sister Peaden was pretty happy she got to play the flute! Also a member who teaches Yoga is letting us take a yoga class from her on Mondays and Wednesdays, she still has to get it approved, but we tried it out this morning and it was awesome. I think it will really help with my back problems.
This week I feel especially grateful for personal revelation. I was having trouble answering one of our investigators questions and had been pondering it and praying about it for a few days now, then this morning during personal study I found the answer. I searched the scriptures and used cross references and then pondered a lot and I got the answer I needed. It was amazing. I have a testimony of pondering on the words of the scriptures. It makes a huge difference. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father knows us each so personally and so well that he answers our prayers. Sometimes we have to do a little work on our part to receive that answer, but the answer will always come. The church is true! I know it! Have a wonderful week and thank you so much for your letters and prayers, I really am grateful for them!
Monday, January 10, 2011
January 10
We had 4 people to church this Sunday! yahoo! I was thrilled. But get this: after Sacrament Meeting we are all so excited for investigators class and BAM someone comes in and says that the rest of church is CANCELLED. Church cancelled? I have never heard of church being cancelled right in the middle! We didn't even get that much snow. BUT there are people that drive from far away to get to church, so I understand they need to be safe:) I was totally bummed. It's just that church is the culmination of all of our work and we have 4 people to church and it gets cancelled. Lame. Oh and we had a less active, Sister Meisner come to church for the 1st time in 6 years! I was so thrilled and shocked that she was there my tears overflowed. It is such a wonderful feeling seeing people come to church who you know it must have been a real struggle for them but they did it! The rest of the day Sister Peaden and I were snowed in, which totally stinks. We studied all day and then got to see the CES fireside with Elder Christofferson. It was sooooooo good. I highly recommend it. He talked about living day by day, which was a message I totally needed. As I was watching it I was thinking about how this time last year almost to the date I was at the Marriott center watching Elder Andersen give the CES fireside, never would I have imagined that I would now be in Nova Scotia watching the broadcast the next year.
The week has been great! We have a new investigator, Nathan. He's a professor at the local college, and oh boy let me tell you about his lesson. It was awesome! 1st of all he pulls out his Bible and it looks just like ours, it's marked and is in a protective case. Right from the start I know this guy knows his Bible. He listened to our whole lesson without saying a word just intentively listening and then at the end I ask him to read and pray to know the Book of Mormon is true. He then pulls out Bible verse after Bible verse explaining why we shouldn't pray for answers! He says that "feelings" can be manipulated. He also said that he knows for a fact that Joseph Smith did not see God the Father and Jesus Christ because they are not seperate beings. I pulled out Acts and showed him Stephen's account of seeing all 3 seperately (thank you Mom for being a good seminary teacher!) He then said that no where in the Bible does it say that God has a body, I led him to Genesis about how we were created in his image. He was about to go to another scripture when I stopped him and said, you know this could go on forever. But we're not here to convince you! We are here to testify and to teach, and you have the opportunity to act on the message by praying and reading. He respected that and said that he wasn't here to argue but that he feels that all 4 of us at the table ( we had members with us) had bought into something that was completely false. He then said that one of us has to be wrong and one of us is right. With a smile on my face I whole heartedly said, "you're right!" I then told him, Our message is either true or it's not, and the way to know is to read The Book of Mormon and pray! He didn't commit to pray about it but said he would read and compare it with the Bible and if it matches up with the Bible then he would believe it. I left so pumped up! I feel like I avoided "bible bashing" and followed the Spirit and it was amazing. I had been prepared for that lesson because recently Jerry had a lot of questions and I had studied them out and realized that a lot of his answers were seminary mastery scripture answers. By studying those, I was able to answer Nathan's questions. It's amazing how when you are prepared, the Spirit can then help you to recall what you have studied. How incredible!
So that was my fun experience of the week! I really love Truro and love the members. We got to go to Young Women's activity this past week and bring an investigator with us. The activity was Yoga. It was awesome! Members have been feeding us Turkey dinners non stop since Christmas. They take care of us and love us and I feel so grateful for the people of Truro. Snow, like turkey has been non stop. I actually don't mind the cold when it snows so much. Something about it snowing makes it not feel as cold I think. We had interviews with President, they went well, I always love seeing President and Sister Simpson. Now we're off to another week, trying to prepare Chad and Matt for their baptisms on the 22nd and the 29th. Stressful, but a good kind of stress. Have a wonderful week! Thank you for your prayers and letters!
love,
Sister Crane
The week has been great! We have a new investigator, Nathan. He's a professor at the local college, and oh boy let me tell you about his lesson. It was awesome! 1st of all he pulls out his Bible and it looks just like ours, it's marked and is in a protective case. Right from the start I know this guy knows his Bible. He listened to our whole lesson without saying a word just intentively listening and then at the end I ask him to read and pray to know the Book of Mormon is true. He then pulls out Bible verse after Bible verse explaining why we shouldn't pray for answers! He says that "feelings" can be manipulated. He also said that he knows for a fact that Joseph Smith did not see God the Father and Jesus Christ because they are not seperate beings. I pulled out Acts and showed him Stephen's account of seeing all 3 seperately (thank you Mom for being a good seminary teacher!) He then said that no where in the Bible does it say that God has a body, I led him to Genesis about how we were created in his image. He was about to go to another scripture when I stopped him and said, you know this could go on forever. But we're not here to convince you! We are here to testify and to teach, and you have the opportunity to act on the message by praying and reading. He respected that and said that he wasn't here to argue but that he feels that all 4 of us at the table ( we had members with us) had bought into something that was completely false. He then said that one of us has to be wrong and one of us is right. With a smile on my face I whole heartedly said, "you're right!" I then told him, Our message is either true or it's not, and the way to know is to read The Book of Mormon and pray! He didn't commit to pray about it but said he would read and compare it with the Bible and if it matches up with the Bible then he would believe it. I left so pumped up! I feel like I avoided "bible bashing" and followed the Spirit and it was amazing. I had been prepared for that lesson because recently Jerry had a lot of questions and I had studied them out and realized that a lot of his answers were seminary mastery scripture answers. By studying those, I was able to answer Nathan's questions. It's amazing how when you are prepared, the Spirit can then help you to recall what you have studied. How incredible!
So that was my fun experience of the week! I really love Truro and love the members. We got to go to Young Women's activity this past week and bring an investigator with us. The activity was Yoga. It was awesome! Members have been feeding us Turkey dinners non stop since Christmas. They take care of us and love us and I feel so grateful for the people of Truro. Snow, like turkey has been non stop. I actually don't mind the cold when it snows so much. Something about it snowing makes it not feel as cold I think. We had interviews with President, they went well, I always love seeing President and Sister Simpson. Now we're off to another week, trying to prepare Chad and Matt for their baptisms on the 22nd and the 29th. Stressful, but a good kind of stress. Have a wonderful week! Thank you for your prayers and letters!
love,
Sister Crane
Thursday, January 6, 2011
My P-Day has been changed to Mondays!!
Hi everyone! I just wanted to let you know that my preparation day has been changed to Mondays! So when you write me try to write Sunday night so that I can get your e-mails and read them on Mondays! I think President has changed it because most other mission have theirs on Mondays so hopefully it'll be a good change! Thank you for your prayers and love and support! You each are always in my prayers! The church is true!
love,
Sister Crane
love,
Sister Crane
January 5th
Hello! Boy is it cold here, I'm glad to hear we're not the only one's experiencing this frigidness though. Yikes. It was negative 5 celsius. (no clue what that is in F) And the windshield is nuts. There's lots of ice and I have not fallen once thank you very much. Had some close calls though. :) Everyone keeps telling us at doors, "wow you girls picked a cold night to come around" ....haha little do they know we didn't pick it, we're always around!
I hope you all had a wonderful New Year's! We got to come in early and Sister Peaden and I celebrated with Dairy Queen and a good game of Sorry and I was in bed by 9:30pm. It was fantastic. Although it can't compare to the Wright's party every year! Oh well I'll be there for it next year!
In other news Casey and her boyfriend Eytan came to church on Sunday. It was awesome! Chad came too, his Mom Darleen had to work though. I was so happy to have 3 investigators there! I remember when it was nice to have 1 or when no one showed up. And now we had 6 that were supposed to come! That's amazing that it has already increased by so much. Eytan even prayed for his first time at our lesson last week. He asks really good questions and Casey is always helping him by sharing her testimony. I think they are the neatest, they are so down to earth and closer in our age than any of our other investigators so it's nice to be able to relate to them a little bit more.
Jerry has had A LOT of questions. And recently got into some Anti stuff. Yikes. His questions are all really good though. I went home the other night and wrote his questions all down and then that night looked up all his answers, thought about it as I went to bed, and when I woke up in the morning couldn't stop thinking about it and looked up more answers. Honestly, I knew all of the answers, they were all found in Seminary Mastery Scriptures! I just forgot that I knew them! So there you go my testimony of the importance of Seminary has sky rocketed! Seriously it's so important! And all of the religion classes I've taken at BYU combined with everything I learned in Seminary has been SO helpful on my mission. When Jerry brought up Anti stuff I knew exactly how to disprove it because of a class I took with Susan Easton Black. Of course I don't use any of that information, but I refer him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon, (arguing gets you no where) but as he tells me his information, it doesn't shake me because I've already learned and I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet! The great thing about Jerry is that he's still willing to meet with us. He still just wants to know for himself. He wants to know so badly. I know he'll receive his answer. I just know he will.
So besides the stress of getting our investigators ready for their baptismal dates, things here have been really good. P-day has been switched to Mondays! So expect my letters 2 days early! I love being here! Now that it's 2011 and I'm going home in 2011 I'm realizing more and more how short my time is here. I know it will just fly by and it really is such a short amount of time to serve the Lord. I know that what I'm doing is so important. I love the gospel. It can change peoples lives! The Book of Mormon is true! I know it without a doubt! I know that we have a prophet on the earth to day. President Monson is a true prophet of God. We have the authority on the earth today to baptize. What a miracle. I feel so blessed and grateful for all that I have! We should be the happiest people on earth because we have what a lot of people don't and they need it! The church is true! Thank you for your letters and prayers!
love,
Sister Crane
I hope you all had a wonderful New Year's! We got to come in early and Sister Peaden and I celebrated with Dairy Queen and a good game of Sorry and I was in bed by 9:30pm. It was fantastic. Although it can't compare to the Wright's party every year! Oh well I'll be there for it next year!
In other news Casey and her boyfriend Eytan came to church on Sunday. It was awesome! Chad came too, his Mom Darleen had to work though. I was so happy to have 3 investigators there! I remember when it was nice to have 1 or when no one showed up. And now we had 6 that were supposed to come! That's amazing that it has already increased by so much. Eytan even prayed for his first time at our lesson last week. He asks really good questions and Casey is always helping him by sharing her testimony. I think they are the neatest, they are so down to earth and closer in our age than any of our other investigators so it's nice to be able to relate to them a little bit more.
Jerry has had A LOT of questions. And recently got into some Anti stuff. Yikes. His questions are all really good though. I went home the other night and wrote his questions all down and then that night looked up all his answers, thought about it as I went to bed, and when I woke up in the morning couldn't stop thinking about it and looked up more answers. Honestly, I knew all of the answers, they were all found in Seminary Mastery Scriptures! I just forgot that I knew them! So there you go my testimony of the importance of Seminary has sky rocketed! Seriously it's so important! And all of the religion classes I've taken at BYU combined with everything I learned in Seminary has been SO helpful on my mission. When Jerry brought up Anti stuff I knew exactly how to disprove it because of a class I took with Susan Easton Black. Of course I don't use any of that information, but I refer him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon, (arguing gets you no where) but as he tells me his information, it doesn't shake me because I've already learned and I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet! The great thing about Jerry is that he's still willing to meet with us. He still just wants to know for himself. He wants to know so badly. I know he'll receive his answer. I just know he will.
So besides the stress of getting our investigators ready for their baptismal dates, things here have been really good. P-day has been switched to Mondays! So expect my letters 2 days early! I love being here! Now that it's 2011 and I'm going home in 2011 I'm realizing more and more how short my time is here. I know it will just fly by and it really is such a short amount of time to serve the Lord. I know that what I'm doing is so important. I love the gospel. It can change peoples lives! The Book of Mormon is true! I know it without a doubt! I know that we have a prophet on the earth to day. President Monson is a true prophet of God. We have the authority on the earth today to baptize. What a miracle. I feel so blessed and grateful for all that I have! We should be the happiest people on earth because we have what a lot of people don't and they need it! The church is true! Thank you for your letters and prayers!
love,
Sister Crane
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)