Two Months!

Hello Friends and Family!

It's already been two months??? It feels like it's been years! Haha. :) So I've been in the mission field for two months. Sweet! It doesn't seem like that much time but the fact that it's flown by so quickly is incredible! It seems like yesterday I was a new little missionary. It still feels like that with transfers out of the way, but I'm beginning to get the ropes.

Ok so basically everything got changed around this transfer. We have a whole new leadership for our zone and district. Out of 20 Missionaries in our zone, all but 7 were transferred out. Crazy right? President did a ton of switches and changes and opened new areas. He pink-washed some areas (opened it up to sisters) and has released a lot of the Sister Training Leaders and Zone Leaders. It's weird. It's like as soon as this new transfer came in everything goes crazy. In my area (Greenwood 2nd) we have a new elder! Elder Clayton was moved to Linton, IN (middle of nowhere) and now we have Elder Busath. (B-yew-saith). He actually came out with Elder Clayton.

This week we had a lot of learning to do. I've been trying to go through this book we have called the First 12 Weeks meant for missionary training and go back and do things because we've been really behind in it. Apparently being behind is a good thing but it drives me crazy. So I'm going through the stuff that we missed or skipped to make sure I have everything and it's giving me a way to understand how I can teach it to a new missionary should I ever train. I'm also having a goal of going through my PMG every day to read a little in order, as well as looking up chapters specifically to try and get a better understanding of it. So far so great! It's helping me understand the doctrine I'm teaching! :)

We do these things call Gems each morning where we take something from personal study that stood out to us and share it. Then we break in to comp study and role plays. We practice how we would give a 5 minute lesson, give a church tour (Which we have later tonight for FHE!), and lots of other things like Personal Contacting, Tracting, or other various activities. We get an extra hour of study since I'm a new missionary. If it was up to me, I'd do a ton of personal study. It's so...interesting. But It's not up to me so I do what I can and enjoy while it lasts. :)

We are getting a new car! Well, new to us at least. The elders will get their own and so will we! It's a big relief. Kinda sad that we won't get to carpool anymore. But whatever. We will still see them at dinner appointments.

We're making break-throughs with our Spanish investigators! They've agreed to come on a church tour! So exciting! They're super cool and very very smart. Mr. Sanchez is very smart and knows the Bible. And he wants Biblical answers about the Church. We're doing the best we can and we even have Spanish speakers in the ward to help. My Spanish is nowhere near theirs but I'm learning.

We're meeting lots of people and working hard with members. All is well! It's about to cool down next week. I'm sure we're going to get snow soon. Hopefully it won't be as bad as last year's was. Never know! It's like Utah. Don't like the weather? Wait five minutes. It's always changing.

I love you all lots!

John 13:15 is my Gem for the day!

Sister Halverson

Transfer Week!

Hello Friends and Family!

This week we are having transfers! Which means a lot of missionaries are leaving and even more are coming in! Crazy!!! Luckily I'll be in Greenwood until December and then for a little bit longer after that (She said hopefully).  We should be getting to Stop 11 Chapel (The stake center in Greenwood) early and I'm going to pound out some well needed letters. I've got, like, 20 I need to get out. I'll see how many I can get out today.

This week we had lots of miracles!  It was off to a rocky start but we finished it with tons of miracles.  We have really tried to work with members to get referrals and we had some pretty fun conversations.  There is this one lady in our ward named Amanda Peterson.  She's a recent convert.  (If they've been baptized within the last year they are called recent converts) and she's super spiritual. She has been so kind to come with us on a church tour with one of our investigators. He (the investigator) is really cool and definitely has faith. We're now just trying to see how deep his understanding is of what we're asking him to do. We've been fed by lots of great families. And we usually eat dinner with one of the members in our ward. 

 

So on Thursday we followed a prompting to deliver thank you notes to some of the families who have helped us. We went to the Relief Society President's home and we were able to help a little. She had to have emergency surgery and had her gallbladder removed. :( No fun. Then we met with a woman named Jo Jo and she seems interested. We have an appointment with her tomorrow. :) She's super down to earth.  Then we went and served a family in our ward whose daughter had to come home early from her mission due to severe depression. :( It was sad. So we cleaned her kitchen for her and we'll hopefully be able to take Liesel out with us on splits so she can transition better. It was hard to see her on Sunday. She's such a sweet girl. I pray she can go back out in the field. Her brother is serving in Africa! Crazy!  And from what Sister Jackson says (the mom) the ebola outbreak hasn't even touched the country he's in.

 

We've been working hard with members and now this week we are going to try and contact some teenagers we ran into. They seem super open and I've got them on my prayer list. I know Heavenly Father is going to help us out. We have been so blessed with all these contacts we have and I know it is because of the "finding fast" everyone did for us.  Thanks to all who did this.  Fasting really works!

 

I've also gone through a whole planner! Crazy! We decorate them each transfer. This one I have now is green and has cut outs from some pass along cards with I'm a Mormon on the front. 

Ogden will be receiving an Elder from my area! His name is Jake Weston.  Elder Weston will be in Utah around the end of November beginning of December.

 

We went to a Mexican restaurant on Friday with missionaries from our zone and the Zone leaders. So good! There are also lots of places called Steak and Shake everywhere. The burgers are to DIE for! So good!

 

We were able to go see Meet The Mormons.  President Cleveland was able to have a private screening for all the missionaries the day before it hit theaters here in Carmel.   The Church was very specific as to where the movies were allowed to be played. So it was only in Carmel.  We were all able to see it.  If you have not yet seen it, make sure you go.  The show is absolutely incredible.

Thank you for all the packages!!!!!  I got my boots, the bountiful box, and those awesome shoe covers!  They were a hit when I showed them to the other missionaries. 

Love you all!

Sister Halverson

Shoe covers for wet weather!

 

All my packages.  Love them!

Elders Lorsch and Clayton

I call this the Butter Face

My District

Me with Sister M

Sister "M" has a bulging disc in her back.  This helps?!?

Christmas Trees and Bunco

Hello Family and Friends!

So this week has been very cold and rainy. The leaves are changing colors which is beautiful! But the cold is definitely not my favorite. So! This Friday we had Zone Conference. After every training we play Bunco and everyone is supposed to bring a gift. I brought random treats from around the apartment and made them all clever with little mission related sayings like "Mint" to be a missionary. It was fun. An elder decided it would be a grand idea to bring a Christmas tree as his gift. Well, I kinda fail at playing Bunco and it was the very last gift. Needless to say, we won't have to worry about Christmas decorations this year! And to top it off, when we checked the mail when we got home, we had an Xfinity mail thing for Dawn Butt. Yep. Dawn Butt. Dawn Butt and the Christmas tree. Oh how could my week get any better?

It's actually been rough after that. We had one of our investigators dump us. She told us she wasn't raised to believe in another testament of Jesus Christ. She didn't want to believe it. So she dropped us. The other joined her brothers church so she dropped us. It wasn't a great week. Saturday was very rough but I was able to get a blessing from the elders in our area. Very happy I got it! It just goes to show that Satan will do everything and anything to bring us down. Hard but rewarding. So we have some work to do now! Hopefully it goes better from here. We're trying to work hard and I have such wonderful people in my life! :)

On Thursday we went and saw Meet the Mormons! IT WAS SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!! Good Gravy we loved it! The last story had most of the Missionaries in the room in tears. Me especially. But we still loved it. No idea about any relations concerning Gail Halvorsen. But it was pretty cool to have the same(ish) last name! :)

I love you all! Go see it if you can! You'll love the movie! Thank you for your letters and love! I'm trying to write back but we're only allowed to write on Monday for everything! :(

I love you all!

Sister Halverson

 

General Conference Weekend

Hello Friends and Family!

What did you think of conference? It was weird watching it from here, but cool too! What did y'all think of the different languages? That was unexpected. It was way cool though! We were able to get one of our investigators to conference with us on Sunday morning at the Chapel. Her name is Needa and she's super sweet. We are going to try and get her on a date this week. Fun!

This week was a blur. We had so much to do. I had my first transfer this week! That was a blast! I went with Sister Vidmar down in Franklin and we had tons of fun! She's so funny. I told her all about our crazy adventures in Greenwood. She's super crazy and awesome and I hope I'm called as Sister Training Leader sometime on my mission even though it's a lot of hard work. It would be cool to work with so many sisters and be trusted with this kind of calling. I'm excited to get things going and really get past the first twelve weeks of training. Then the fun can begin. I'll probably be in Greenwood for another three months after training. I might even be training. O.O Sister McKendrick is leaving in two months. :( Sad day! Don't want to think about it.

I just realized I never told y'all about Greenwood! It's green. and there are lots of trees. :) A very fitting name if you ask me haha. The people here are humble and very kind. A lot are set in their ways of thinking, teaching and preaching. There are many churches here but where Utah has a Mormon church on every corner, here it's every church BUT Mormon. It's pretty funny. The weather is starting to get cold. The leaves are changing and falling. Winter is upon us. Not ready for it. It's projected that this winter will be worse than last year. Fun fun fun.

The members here apparently love chili. We've had it like 4 times this week alone. It's so good! However we're kind of getting sick from chili. Awful. Oh well. Beggars can't be choosers. :)  But with the cold coming in, it's nice to have a warm meal and a family to share the gospel with. It's a blessing that's for sure.

Sorry to cut it short! But we must get back to work. :) The work is good. The people are better. And the Lord is the best. Love you all!

Love,

Sister Halverson