On the Temple trip we passed the Intrepid! Can you see the Sr-71 there too! 

Me and Sister Biolena at the trainers meeting. I'm sure gonna miss that one:( 

Also Elder Tippets who lives down the street from us in real life.

 Our first lesson with Bill and Ashley!

Our investigator, Sister Avilez, and her daughter, Kyla found out I was leaving soon so they had a little feast for us--so cute! 

Family Darlings!

This week has been swell! We only taught nineteen lessons this week, one short of mission standard, but we found ten new investigators! Honestly, I don't feel like we did anything different this week from previous weeks, but God just wanted to give us some miracles! We saw a lady, Sandy, who has been taught by missionaries before. But I don't think they taught her everything. She says that if she was going to be baptized into any religion, it would be the Mormon one. She said that she knew that one day she would be a Mormon. And when we told her about baptism and baptism for the dead and being able to be sealed for time and all eternity she said, "That's what I want!" I'm so excited! Also, she makes miniature houses that are so incredible! There are all these teeny furnitures and little dishes in cabinets. Oh, it's a blast! We also saw some kids, Natasha and Anthony, who's dad is a less-active member. He says they can choose what they want to do, but he'd rather they be a little older so they can make a more informed decision. They told us they want to be baptized though. And really, kids are closer to Heavenly Father, so they can recognize truth more easily, so I think they're as informed as they ever will be. But we'll see what happens. We also saw Brother Robertozzi, who isn't a member, but he comes to Church every week with his wife who is a very devout member. She works at the Temple! We've taught him before and he didn't seem very sincere about it all. But this lesson was different. I think his heart is being softened, and it makes me so happy! His wife has been a member for thirty years now and has so wanted to be sealed to him. When they found out I was leaving so soon, they scheduled a bunch of appointments with us so that I'd be able to be there to teach him the rest of the lessons. I love them. Our lesson with Bill and Ashley was..... super long! If we would've ended it halfway through, it would've been outstanding. And then we just kept going. We were mortified at how it dragged on. Ugh. But thankfully they agreed to meet with us again.

On Tuesday after district meeting I asked my district leader, Elder Disney Smith (that's not his real name, he just likes singing so we call him that), to give me a blessing of comfort. I've been pretty calm about everything, but inwardly I'm so nervous about going home. I'm super excited to see all of you, just not excited to not be a missionary and to have to move on to the next part of life. It was a really powerful blessing. I love that at any given time there are young men worthy to call down the powers of heaven to bless God's children. What a blessing that is. 

On Wednesday we had "specialized training" where we learned morse code and how to build life rafts out of toothpicks. No no, but that's what the title makes me think of. It was for new missionaries and their trainers. Sister Richardson super needed it, just to see her mtc district and such. And it was good for me to get advice from the other trainers and how they make their companionships work and how they've helped their new companions. I am so fortunate to get along so well with my companion. We laugh so much! And we work super hard. When she gets down or homesick we talk it out, then laugh about something. And she's always up for making goonish noises with me. And to spice things up while we drive for five hours to get anywhere in this area, we set our gps to a different language every few days and talk in that accent for those days. I now know how to say "turn left" and "turn right" in Swedish, Romanian, French, and Italian!

On Friday I and the two elders departing with me, Elder Archibald and Elder Heward, went to the Temple with the Jeppsons. If not for Elder Archibald checking the Temple schedule, we wouldn't have gone because it's closed for cleaning in February. I can't believe that's the last time I may ever be in "The City!", sad thought. Since we got there early, we had time to go to an upper floor and look at the sealing rooms and admire the paintings. We had a lovely session, and President Jeppson took us through the veil, it was really neat. I prayed about Popsy, and didn't feel anything saying he didn't want to be baptized, so I'm thinking that's a yes. We got to have a meeting with one of the men in the Temple Presidency and ask any questions we had about the Temple, which was awesome! And President Jeppson spoke to the Elders about how special me and Sister Jeppson are, and how all women are so important to God. Men have to have the Priesthood in order to enter the Temple, but sisters can just go right on in. After that Sister Jeppson and I went into a nearby cafe to pick up 'sandwidges' (I felt so neat listening to all the local New Yworkers ordering foods, what a gas!). We ate them in the upper floor of the Temple, which is actually a regular Church meetinghouse. They even have a gym up there, which you would never guess just looking at the Temple. The ride home was nice because after the Elders were dropped off I had a whole car ride to talk to the Jeppsons about whatever! I asked President Jeppson about being a Patriarch, and how it felt to give blessings and to declare people's lineages. It was really interesting.

 

On Sunday Sister Richardson and I taught Relief Society from Elder Nelson's talk "Ask the Missionaries!" And no, we didn't just say, "Ask us! The end!" It went pretty well, and members have been giving us referrals which is so great! With the age change, and with thousands of missionary applications coming in every week, God knows that there are more people right now then ever before who are prepared to receive and accept the Gospel. He wouldn't have let this insane influx of youths go out if there weren't people prepared. Exciting times!

Oh, and on a lame note, we just found out that an Apostle is coming to our mission. In March. I barely missed Elder Bednar in 2011, and now I'll be missing another one! I think it'll be Elder L. Tom Perry, but I'm not sure. Anyhow, these missionaries are sooooo lucky!

All in all, this has been a pretty good week. Lots of miracles. Next Monday I'm going on the "fun departing trip" to Washington's Monument. It used to be the Ellis Island/Statue of Liberty trip, but as those got too damaged in the hurricane, we don't do that anymore. Goons! This all just feels so weird. I never thought this transfer would actually happen.

I love you kids, and I hope you're all safe in the snow!

Sister Mystikal

 Sister Richardson filling up our rear tire for the second time that week. The first time a random man helped us and we ended up giving him a Book of Mormon. The third time another random man helped us and we gave him a pass-along card and assured him we aren't polygamists. The fourth time we took it to a tire place and they took a nail out of it.

Some pretty ice that's growing on everything out here!

 We met Sister Biolena and Sister Tueller at the Wal-Mart last monday and chatted for about an hour next to the Kool-Aids.

Some of the sisters with Elder Christiansen who leaves in a few weeks. I'm glad I've served with him my whole mission because he's a gas!

 My companion and I making sure we were classily dressed before running out to the car to retrieve some things.

The Marvin/Menendez family who made us really tasty foods. The grampa has the biggest testimony I can just tell! I can't undestand it when he says it, but I can just feel it!

Family Dearest!

How are things in the great wild west? I hear the temperatures there are frigid. They are quite cold here as well!

This week has been pretty great. We saw Dawn and Judy and they told us that Ashley wants to be baptized and Bill does as well! We're officially teaching them tomorrow! I hope I get to be here for it! We were walking about and met a lovely lady, Charlotte, walking her canine. She's Catholic but she readily accepted a Book of Mormon, and told us she had been to our Church in Maine and had had a wonderful experience there. We're going to follow up this week to see how her reading is going. We saw a less-active couple, the France's, and initially they said they were getting ready for bed. Then the dogs came piling out the front door and we had to shepherd them back in and we sort of shuffled in behind the hounds. We commented on an Angel Moroni statue he had and he told us he makes them and sells them. He took us down to their pottery studio and showed us all their crazy artwork. Then they gave us a bunch of oddly shaped pots to take home. It was quite a good meeting, and neat to see that, though he doesn't come to Church, he still enjoys making churchy things for other people. We'll be teaching them this coming week too!

We also had Zone Conference, which was amazing! I love it when we all get together and learn things! We learned a lot about love, which is our monthly focus. I have to say, I never knew I could love so much. Obviously I love you, my family, and that's just natural because I've grown up with you and you're all just amazingly superb! But learning to love people I've only known a few weeks, or even over the course of an hour, is strange to me. I feel the Spirit when we express to people how much God loves them, and that makes me love them too. With some people, I feel like my heart will just burst because I love them so much, like Little Peter and his family. And to think that very soon I won't be able to be around these people I love really breaks my heart. A sister who recently finished her mission told us to "love them 'til it hurts," and that's what's happening.

On Sunday at 7:30 am a member of the Bishopbric called and asked if one of us would fill in for someone who got sick. I volunteered, and only had about seven minutes to prepare my talk before we had to leave for all of our Sunday morning meetings. They told me to speak on the scriptures. I couldn't think of a broader topic except maybe Jesus Christ. I decided to talk about how when we study the scriptures, we need to Learn, Feel, and Do. We need to learn the doctrine and the stories of the scriptures and learn about our Savior. Then we need to ponder and feel what the message means for us. We need to feel the Spirit that comes from studying and feel God's love as He answers our prayers through His words. And then we need to do something about it. If we don't apply the things we learn in the scriptures, we may as well not read them. One of my favorite examples of doing is the group of Anti-Nephi-Lehi's. They went from being a bloodthirsty band of evil-doers, to hearing the word of God, feeling the Atonement as they repented, and burying their weapons of war, and then spent their time serving others. Goons! They're so amazing! 

As Sacrament meeting started one of our investigators, Linda, and her less-active husband Miguel and their children came in and sat down. I couldn't stop grinning the whole meeting! I can't describe the joy I feel when people we invite to Church actually show up! Ah! Joy! 

Before I spoke, a young lady named Libby spoke. She is half French/half Danish. She's got a lot of spunk and she's one of my favorite youths out here. She stood to give her talk on the scriptures, and halfway through she stopped. Tears welled up in her eyes, which I thought were from wanting to share her testimony. Suddenly though it became apparent that she was just terrified. She said, "I...I guess I didn't prepare as well as I'd thought...." It was so sad! And then, the most loving lady in the ward, Sister Adrian (the Italian who made up the word of wisdom rap) walked onto the stand and gave Libby a hug and gave her words of encouragement. Libby finished her talk and sat down. I gave her a hug and gave my talk. I just felt so much love in that room. This poor young woman was comforted by her ward family afterward. I didn't like giving talks as a youth either, but at least we're talking in front of our huge family who loves and supports us. Better to begin public speaking there than for the first time in front of a group who are looking to find faults in what you've got to say.

We ended Sunday by teaching Little Peter about missionary work. He can't wait to be a missionary! I'm so excited for him!

The day I leave there will be twenty-four new missionaries starting here from eighteen years old! Another missionary leaving with me described our situation as "being benched in the fourth quarter." I wish I could be here for all the crazy new things that are about to happen. Of the seventy new missionaries who will be here by April, forty of them will be sisters! There are only eighteen sisters in our mission right now! Woof. But it wasn't meant to be. And I am happy that I'll get to see you kids soon! I hope you're preparing yourselves for this one to come back and jump out from weird places at you, and make goonish sounds all the time!

I love you and I hope you have a good week!

Love,

Sister Meeso Soup

Ok, I know it doesn't look like anything is happening, but we are walking on top of the snow! We weren't falling through! We were basically Legolas!

Sister Rittenhouse and Sister Manno (who was baptized two months ago and is eagerly awaiting her turn to serve a mission) eating tacos in Dover.

Sister Richardson experiencing the Boyles massage chair (it even gets your feet and arms!? It was so crazy!).

Little Peter and Grandma Diaz. Those two!

Corned beef with Ernesto and Doris, who was hovering around somewhere.

A really neat frozen swamp.

Sister Walker, sitting close after she found out we weren't sick. Before she was sitting as far away from us as she could. She calls me her "Ogden girl".

Family Darlings!

This week was pretty incredible. We worked super hard and taught 25 lessons! I went on exchange with the Dover Spanish sisters, and it was really neat! We ate tacos there, and they were tasty. The people we taught were so open to listening and learning, I wish more English speaking people were like that. But when we switched back to our regular areas, Sister Richardson and I did a lot of faithful praying that we'd be able to find people and have the courage to speak to them. Sister Richardson is very good at speaking to people, thank goodness. We're both pretty awkward at starting out the conversation though. But Heavenly Father will help us.

On Thursday, our walking day, we taught a whole bunch! We gave out two Books of Mormon, and found some really good potentials. We went to visit a less-active, and in the apartment lobby, we saw a man painting. I felt like I should talk to him, so I jumped out of the elevator, then made some awkward sounds because my companion hadn't followed me. So I hopped back into the elevator. The doors started to close, and I hopped back out thinking she would follow me. When she didn't, I made more awkward sounds (the painter had his back turned to all of this and had no idea what was going on, but probably heard the elevator dinging a lot). Then I  shuffled back into the elevator. My companion was so perplexed. We went on to see the less-active, and came back down. Alas, the painter had already finished painting and left. Next time though, we'll remember to follow the promptings of the Spirit, because who knows how that could've gone. Oh, at the less-active's house, she sprayed us with three different perfumes she got for Christmas, and we smelled.... quite pungently like we were 95 years old. Maybe that's why the guy left. Later that day, we joined our Bible Study group at the local college for a presentation on the Dome of the Rock and ancient Temples. It was quite fascinating!

The next day we saw Ernesto, a member who's been struggling with smoking. He made a New Year's resolution to pray and read the Book of Mormon every time he's tempted to smoke, and he has been tobacco free for two weeks! His countenance was so much brighter and he seemed so happy and energetic! I love that the Lord keeps His promises when we keep His commandments! Much to Sister Richardson's dismay, Ernesto and Doris fed us rice, beans, and corned beef. Sister Richardson hates ground meats, and beef particularly. While Ernesto and Doris were in the kitchen, I scarfed some of Sister Richardson's food down so it would look like she had eaten more. The things you'll do for your companions... 

At little Peter's we talked about the Temple. His grandma also fed us rice, beans, and meats. It was all excellent, but again, my poor companion. Little Peter went to the Temple on Saturday and loved it! Today I'm making him a journal so he can record his spiritual experiences in it. I love that kid so much! We made a secret handshake, that he now does with all the missionaries he sees. What a champ!

Saturday was chalk full of miracles. Besides teaching eight lessons, we found a new investigator, and helped a lady in dire need. The day started out gloomy, as the street we'd planned to knock had been gotten to the week before by the Jehovah's Witnesses. They're great people, but when we come so soon after, people are not happy. We kept going about the day though and taught some lessons. As we were passing a certain street I turned the wheel quickly and said, "We need to see Sister Walker, she hasn't been to Church in forever." We saw her, funny old lady, she didn't want to come to Church because she says if she gets even so much as a whiff of the flu she'll be toast. She told us to visit her neighbor. We did, and we taught her about the Book of Mormon. She's a Muslim lady, but she doesn't feel like the books in her faith are true. She says if she'd want any book to be true, it would be the Book of Mormon. She says she might have a hard time understanding it, but she's going to read nevertheless. So she's our new investigator! 

Then we got a call that our last appointment cancelled. We didn't want to do our back-ups in that town since it's far away, so we decided to stay in our home town. By 8:30 pm we didn't know who else to see. Not wanting to go home early though, we decided to visit Donna. She'd ditched our last appointment, but we wanted to see how she was doing. We knocked on her door, and she answered it, sobbing with make-up streaking down her face. She told us her daughter was pregnant and going to jail, her other daughter wouldn't let her see her granddaughter, they were about to be evicted, and a whole host of other things. Her kids were out for the evening, so she was alone. She'd just been praying, telling God she couldn't handle it anymore. She was just about to overdose, when we knocked on the door. I love God so much. He prepared us to be there for her by making our appointment cancel, by helping us decide to stay in town, and by directing us to her house. The funny thing is, I didn't feel a big, "we NEED to see her" kind of feeling. It was just a random thought. But He trusted us to follow those thoughts given us by the Holy Ghost, and He answered her prayer. I'm so glad I'm out here.

 
On Sunday we saw James, and the members we brought were just who he needed. I would've never paired them together, but they were the closest ones to his home, and the things they said brought comfort to him. I love seeing the Spirit work inside people to bless other people! The Gospel is so true! I love it so much, and I'm going to miss being a part of this. Of course I'll still be a missionary at home, but this is just so incredible. I love seeing little Peter excited about the Temple, and Dawn receiving a calling in Church that she's excited to fulfill, and hearing that Sara (my first baptism, in Fardale) got her patriarchal blessing and is happily attending a Young Single Adult ward and is applying to BYU. Goons! This is the best calling of all time!

I love you guys so much. I'm so excited to see you and play with you and go on adventures with the kids. I can't believe I'll be home in a month. It seems quite surreal. I love you kidz! Share your testimony with someone--it'll brighten their day.

Sister Merglesby

The Scarnecchia family! Really kool kidz is what they have!

Our car was packed to the gils! Poor little Sis. Dorneles' legs were going numb from being scrunched.

Our last p-day as a zone at Chili's (which is a little too fancy for our budget, but...goons!

Sister Lowry and me, she is now back home in Canada.

My new companion Sister Richardson!

 Elders Glasses Smith and Guymon who are sadly leaving our zone--they had a lot of character.

Me and the Brazilians!

Sisters Biolena, Dorneles, Call and I. We've all been companions with each other at different times!

The Christiansens are one of my favorite senior couples. He coordinated the cars of the mission, not an easy task in Joysey! They'll be leaving at the end of this month:(

 And lastly, Jaylee and her mother Loren! We taught them about baptism this week!

Family Dearest!

Congraduations Mike and Shelb on the small one! Send pictures so I can see her cute squishy face! I just wanna squeeze her already!

So, Sister Torgerson got doubled in to the area I've been dreaming of serving in my whole mission: Jersey City. It's right across the bay from New Ywork, and there's all sorts of crazy there. Sister Dorneles went to Clinton, wherever that is--I'm sure it's nice. My companion, Sister Richardson, is superb! She's from Spanish Fork, she has a Bachelor's in Modern Dance, doesn't like ground beef, and has a very easygoing personality. Thank goodness! She's a bit very homesick, but the other missionaries and members have made her feel quite at home!

This week we taught a returned missionary's sciencey friends. That was interesting. And it lasted WAY TOO LONG! We were wrapping up when the young man's father came home. The RM is an amazing speaker, but he could go on for hours. And he did. And we didn't know how to get out. But we felt the Spirit, and hopefully the people we were teaching did too. They said they would sincerely read and pray about the Book of Mormon.

Blessing of blessings, the Relief Society President let us borrow her gps. I have conveniently not had to buy one my whole mission. I started out with old maps (And now I know how to read maps! Skill attained!), then used companion's gps's. But Sister Richardson didn't know she'd need one out here (Who would know that? I didn't.). But thankfully we have one now, and we found an old map just in case. Which came in handy when we had to attend a funeral this week. We were cornfused with how the gps operated, and got a little lost on our way to the cemetary. And then there were roads under construction. We did all we could, but decided to pull to the side of the road and pray. Heavenly Father directed us to a Roman Catholic Church. We entered, saw that no one was there, felt awkward, and sidled out. But across the street we found a funeral home! We got directions, and made it to the cemetary just as the family was about to leave. We talked with the woman, a less-active who's mother passed away suddenly. We used to teach her mother (They were the most awkward lessons of my mission. She would suddenly stand up and leave in the middle of reading a scripture. Then come back a few minutes later as though nothing had happened. Another time we asked her if she liked basketball, because we could hear it blasting on the radio in her kitchen. She said she didn't. When we asked her if we could turn it down, she shouted,  "NO!" "Um, ok, well, uh, could we pray then, perhaps?" Another time she fell asleep in the lesson, and we didn't know what to do. When she suddenly jerked awake, Sister Torgerson, not knowing what to say, blurted out, "So what did you get from that scripture?" Good times, she was nice.). We gave the lady a hug and handed her a card we'd written with some uplifting scriptures on it and our testimonies. I'm glad we went, because only two people showed up to the funeral. Even though we were late, I think it meant a lot to her to know that someone else cared about her mother too.

 

Good news! Little Peter got the Priesthood! After church we spotted him eagerly fulfilling his Priestly duties of emptying all the garbage bins. So cute.

Another neat thing, a less-active lady, who loves the Church, but got too offended by members of this ward, came on Sunday! Her daughter Jaylee had been talking with her grandmother, who told her she needed to think about baptism, assuming Jaylee would want to be baptized Catholic. Jaylee later told her mother she'd like to be baptized into her (LDS) religion instead. So her mom packed up the kids, much to her husband's unhappiness, and took them to Church so that Jaylee could learn more about the Church before being baptized. It was so great to see them there, and even greater to see the women of the ward just circle about them and make them feel welcome.

It was a good week. We're just trying to find more investigators, as we only have one right now. I've been fasting to find a family to take to the Temple one day. So hopefully with hard work we can find that family soon. 

I love you kids and I hope you have a good week! High fives, on the house!

 

Love you!

 

Sister Melderly  

Alex Boye and his back-up dancers, who did pretty well considering how on the spot it was.

Helping Sister Goodbar make Christmas candies for the little children.

Practicing Stille Nacht with the King family!

Sparta with the Dover Elders--the Brazilian one was our District leader and just a joyous goon!

The Izquierdos! They invited us over to make birthday gifts for Jesus to open on Christmas.

On Christmas Eve we played a plethora of games including the one where you see how many marshmallows you can fit in your mouth while saying words.

Everyone with their spoils from the white elephant--I got a lizard man action figure with his head chopped off. Nice.

Christmas morning!

Little Peter and his father on Christmas Eve! They made us tasty meat with beans and rice!

A package sister Dorneles received, and no it wasn't filled with only beans and rice.

Sister Torgerson testing out her head massager on Sister Dorneles.

NOTE FROM MOM: This was last week's post (12/31/12)--I typed it all in but must not have entered it or something.

Dearest Family!

So good to hear that you all had a great Christmas! I hope your New Year's is just as joyous! Ours will probably be pretty quiet. Or filled with packing because tomorrow is transfers. Which brings me to my next point: Sisters Torgerson and Dorneles are leaving Sparta and I will be training a new sister! I'm so nervous, but I'm also excited! I think I heard she's from the Philippines! With training studies, personal study, comp study, and language studies, we will have four hours of studies every day! Plus her new missionary meetings and my departing missionary meetings. This will be a busy month, which I'm glad about, because it won't give me any time to wig out about leaving.

 
Its been a pretty quiet week, besides driving to Morristown for training meetings. We have been working hard, but not finding too many people. But we just got a returned missionary in the ward, and he has a whole gaggle of friends he wants us to teach! I love the enthusiasm of RMs--I hope I'm that way too! Dawn and Judy have been struggling lately with coming to Church, which makes me really sad. It's not that they don't want to come, but they've been sick. And you know how it is trying to come back to Church after not coming for over a month--it's just so much more difficult. Satan throws everything in your path so that you don't think you can come.  Sister Torgerson has taken it really hard--she has so much charity. She just loves people so much. And Sister Dorneles, the sassy Brazilian one, loves in a different way. She calls them to repentance because she loves them. I've learned so much from them and I'm gonna miss them as companions. Little Peter is doing well, just cute as ever. Kevin is in Uruguay until the middle of January, and we can't contact him there. I wish we would've known beforehand that he was going so we could've looked up the nearest Church for him there.

 
I'm excited for the new year and I hope all of you are too! I know how important setting and planning to achieve our goals are. I would exhort all of you to prayerfully ponder what the Lord expects of you this year. It could be more diligent scripture study, family history work, missionary work, etc. Our ultimate end goal is eternal life with our Heavenly Father, so when setting your goals, think to yourself, "Will this help me be more prepared to meet God? Will this help others be more prepared?" Just food for thought.

I love you kids and I hope you all stay safe! Love you!

Also, this transfer we're getting three sisters in. Next transfer we're getting twelve! And twelve the transfer after that!? Which means every sister left here will be training, and my trainee will train as soon as she's done being trained in twelve weeks! Woof!

Sister Meeso