September 8th

I survived hurricaine Earl! and in fact the day the hurricaine hit I we got more knocking time in done than we did any other day! haha! It wasn't even as exciting as we were hoping for! the power didn't go out or anything! lame! they say 3 more will hit before the end of the year so I'm hoping for some sort of excitment. But I'm glad we were so safe, we had to stay in for part of the day because it was so stormy, and so we deep cleaned which, man oh man does that apartment need! gross. that's all I'll say about that, I think they called sisters into this area mostly for the apartments sake :) So anyways as soon as the rain let up I said, "Sister Peaden lets go!" We both didn't want to, but it was actually a really successful day! Everyone saw how dedicated we were and admired us for it. We got a lot of appointments set up and it was great!

So we're planning this missionary activity for the ward members and I'm so excited about it! Next Saturday we are going to have an activity called "Sweet is the Work" and everyone will bring desserts and we are going to give each member a mission call that says, "you have been called to the Truro Branch" and then give them goals they can accomplish as a missionary for the next month and then President and Sister Simpson are going to come out and do a fireside in a month for them! The coolest part is that it was all our idea and it's actually coming together. And I think the branch we'll seriously feel like it's a celebrity coming out, having the mission pres. come and speak. So hopefully it will get them pumped up to give us referrals. Note to all: give the missionaries referrals, just one, it helps so much! Ok i'm off my soap box, just an idea though :)

Well the real exciting news is that it's leadership training this week! So Tues. through Thurs. we drive up and back to Halifax each day (an hour away) and the mission pres. trains us. About half of the missionaries are there these 3 days 40 of us in total. I have learned so much and to be honest I feel so inadequite. He has just been firing at us with information and on ways to improve and we've been role playing a lot, where we'll pretend to be teaching real investigators to other missionaries. And it is so helpful but man oh man, I just can't help but feel like I have a long way to go! We tried last night to go and apply some of the principles he taught like, "teaching people, instead of teaching lessons" so we went into this lesson with a woman named Karen. She is a single parent. Has a daughter who is 8 and we had taught her twice and actually met her by knocking into her the first week. So we wanted to know if she was really interested because she wasn't reading from the Book of Mormon, so we went in there thinking oh we just need to teach her as a person and forget about the lesson. and so we went from one extreme to the other. From teaching lessons, to teaching her. And guess what. The Spirit wasn't there. We thought about it a lot, and I was really frustrated trying to think what I had done wrong and then Sister Peaden said, "we didn't prepare a lesson!" We went in there unprepared, so of course the Spirit couldn't teach through us! duh! So it's a learning experience. And I am learning slowly, but surely. And I'll get there, I just have such a long way to go.

Life is good. The work is good. I feel like I'm accepting this life style, you know instead of fighting it or wishing I was some where else, I'm here! So I'm trying to just be HERE. It's hard sometimes, but through prayer I'm getting there. One thing I'm really learning this week is how HUGE the Book of Mormon is in our religion. It truly is the keystone of our religion. If we have have a testimony that the Book of Mormon is true, then we will know Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, and that God lives and loves us! Seems easy to us, but it's huge! And trying to teach this to investigators is harder than it seems, but I know if they'll read it they'll know it! And I'm so grateful for prayer. I take for granted the knowledge of prayer, and some people we teach don't even know God will listen to them. It's so amazing to know that we can pray and that God is listening to us! He is I just know it. I know the Book of Mormon is true and that we can gain and regain our testimony of it every day if we will just read it! really study it. The gospel is true! I really think that Truro is a baptizing area I just know it! There are people here that need us and that have been prepared by the Lord to hear the gospel from Sister Peaden and I. I feel it. Yesterday we stopped by a girls house, Casey, she is cohabitating, has 2 kids and works 4 jobs and does school! yikes I know, and she has met with the missionaries a ton, but for the past 4 weeks I've been here we haven't been able to contact her at all! We prayed for her every single day since we've been here and called her and stopped by I can't even count how many times, but then yesterday we felt good about stopping by just one more time. And BAM she was there! she's coming to church on Sunday and we're teaching her next week and as I left I jumped up and down and wanted to dance through the streets. It was the happiest moment of my mission so far. And I think what made it so amazing was knowing that we had been patient and worked so hard and then after the trial of our faith, God allowed us to know when she was home and we got to talk to her! What a huge blessing! I'm just so happy and can't wait to talk to her more!

Well I love you all, you are in my prayers and I think of you often. I know you will be blessed by me being here, and that I will be too, and I know that the Lord loves each of His children so much. And if we pray and read the scriptures we will know that they are true. Until next week!

Sister Crane