Burnt Marshmallows... It's Like Eating Cancer!

Hello friends and family!

Don't worry I'll explain the title in a second! :) This week was really good! We had a great Prep Day! We got our own car!!!!! A Chevy Cruze! I'm doing terrible with my picture taking but I will show you more next week! So excited! And on top of getting a new car...WE GOT A VACUUM!!!!! :D The one we had was this beat up old dirt devil that looked like it had been through the ringer with the elders. It couldn't stand up on it's own and picked up basically nothing. But this new one! YAY! It works, it stands up, and it picked up everything! I don't even want to talk about the stuff this baby pulled up today. Eew. But now the house is clean and disinfected! Perfect. :) We are going to get a nice car freshener too! When we got it last Monday we had it washed and they sprayed this cherry vanilla car freshener and it smelled D-Vine! I will find it if it's the last thing I do! :)

So we met with this very old woman who knows a lot about the Bible but wants to learn more. It's pretty interesting. She's one of those who grew up being warned and having fear thrown at you to do the right thing or be thrust down H E double hockey sticks. And I only worry about bringing her to church because we don't normally talk about being cast down. It'll be an experience! But she's great! We read the Bible to her and then the Book of Mormon and shared a lesson with her. It's fun. Minus the fact that she smokes. And is 83. Weird combo right?

Wednesday we had interviews with President! That was WAY fun. I got to hang out with our new zone and talked to President. Who wouldn't love that? Haha me actually. I'm terrified of President and his assistants. Which is weird because they're such great guys. Too funny. We just had a really great week this week. We had dinner with the Wade family who invited everyone over in their family so there was the Mom and Dad, Sister Wade and her two sisters, her husband, and five little kids. Plus four starving Missionaries. We had a blast talking to them. We just had a lot of fun and shared a message with them. Everyone here is so nice! We are fed a lot and they're super funny. Last night we had dinner at the Tapia's. Sister Tapia comes with us when we teach the Sanchez family. (Our Spanish Family). We had authentic Mexican food and homemade tacos. TOO GOOD!!! I lost track of how many I ate haha. Just kidding, I only had like five small tacos. It was the best. And then we laughed and got to know everyone. It was fun. Turns out I met their daughter when I was in the MTC! And I actually knew Sister Tapia's MTC comp from WSU! That was so interesting!

Friday! We got to carve pumpkins with Bispoh Weston! We were also allowed to watch Hercules and roasted marshmallows! This is where my title comes in. So I like to comet my marshmallows or burn them. Sister Weston doesn't like it so much. So when I told her what a comet was she was like, "It's like eating cancer." I laughed so hard. So it is going to be my mission as an RM to make this into a T-shirt and mail one back to her. Priceless. :) It also snowed. But we don't talk about that haha. No snow! Not yet!

I'm so thankful to be on my mission right now though! We have seen many miracles this week and every week we've been here. It's so cool to see the change in people and in myself. It's safe to say I'm not the same person I was leaving home in August. Definitely not. And that's a good thing! I've realized I want things more like schooling or learning different languages and working hard for my future family. Weird to be thinking about that right now because I love the work I'm doing! It's a blessing to see these families come closer to each other and come closer to God. I have for sure seen His hand in my life. More like in my every moment. He truly loves each and every one of us and I love learning of His will for us every time I open my scriptures or teach an investigator.

 

There was a convert baptism this week (on Saturday) and we were asked to help with her! She forgot a towel and we had to dry her off with extra baptism jumpsuits! Too funny! It was cool seeing her be baptized by Elder Lorsch (His first!). Definitely felt the spirit. :)

 

I pray that all of you at home are doing well! Thank you for your prayers and all your love! I definitely couldn't be where I am today without my wonderful friends and family back home.

Love you all!

Sister Halverson

2 Ne 30: 5-6

Sister McKendrick is always cold so I call her Sister Lizard!

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

A Month Gone By So Quickly

Hello Friends and Family!!!

Has it really been a month?! It seems like yesterday that I just got here! Crazy! Time flies when you're working the Lord's Vineyard. We've had a slower week this week. Mainly because we had Mission Conference on Tuesday with Elder Perkins of the Seventy. He and his wife came and spoke to us on having questions in meetings and not calling meetings meetings. They are now called Revelatory Experiences. Meetings is such a dreary word. Haha. So! Other than that things are good! Our investigators are asking a ton of questions about the priesthood and I consider myself very lucky to have elders in my area to explain more to me. I mean I know about it but there's always more to learn.

The Gospel Principles book has become my new best friend. I look to that book side by side with the scriptures. It has a lot of insights and gives me more to add to my arsenal so I can be prepared to answer the hard questions. Love it!

So as we were tracting this week, Sister McKendrick and I were walking across the way to another house. I saw something on the ground and thought it was a pinecone. NOPE! Not a pinecone. It was a rabbit's torso. O.O Just the bones at least. It went "crunch" and I was too grossed out to look down. Sister McKendrick just looked at me and we both kind of squirmed/screeched. Coyotes live in the area apparently and lots of little dogs go missing. Sad but it was so funny. 

 

We have a whopping total of like 13 investigators! Many of them are in families but that's even better! We have a focus on finding families to teach and baptize. The mission wants a goal of 400 by December and we have 250+ so far! Awesome. :)

We share a car with the elders which is weird but it works. We have hardly any miles left because we are only allotted a certain amount each month and someone *cough* the elders *cough* used them up. So out of 1225 we are left with 15 for the next two days. Luckily our zone leaders are awesome and helped us get 50 more until Wednesday. Which is awesome! Now we can actually drive!

Out of everything that has happened this week Women's Conference really stood out to me. We heard from some pretty amazing women and the conference was centered around the temple and the things we can obtain from doing work. I would like to challenge all of you to find at least one name and do the work for them. It's IMPERATIVE we do work for those on the other side. Everyone deserves a chance to fly. :) Also, God wouldn't give us these beautiful buildings if He didn't want us to do the work. He loves us so much so that we have temples. Love them! We're trying to get a recently converted family into Family History work and getting them to the temple. Sister Davis wants to do the work for her mother. :)

We've been given many challenges this week and I want to give my family and friends some challenges too. :) If you know what a church tour is, go on one! It's really cool to be taught by the missionaries! It's cool for me to give one! Listen/watch General Conference with questions that you want answered. Pray about them. Write them down. And listen! :) Pray for someone to refer them to the missionaries. We LIVE off of referrals. Plus not to mention, it keeps us from tracting. They don't like us to tract as often. They want us to have appointments and be busy. I know it's a lot of challenges but you don't have to do all of them. Pick a couple that really stand out to you and work on them this week. As for the names challenge, please do this one. Out of all of the ones I've given you please do this one. It'll not only bless you for being in the House of the Lord but will bless them with the opportunity to accept the work.

Thank you all for writing me!!!!! I know I don't get to write back very often individually and so far haven't been able to but I truly appreciate it! It makes me want to go out and work harder! I WILL write back eventually! I'm determined! I love you all so much!

Things are great other wise! House is clean, we have GOOD groceries, and are busy at work. I love you all!!!

Sister Halverson

Inspiration Wall

The Washing Machine of DOOM! Sounds like a freight train.

I love to receive surprise boxes in the mail! 

Week Two In Indiana

Hello!

This week has been so awesome! We have an investigator on date for baptism! And we kinda blew the standard of excellence out of the water. Our district was super happy/shocked to hear the work that's been going on. And boy do we have a lot of work to be done! We are teaching several families and many people. It's exciting to feel the Spirit so strongly and guide us. The other day we were trying to visit an investigator from the previous elders and I saw this guy walking down the street. I had a feeling that said to give him a Book of Mormon. I wasn't sure what to do then it said we'll get him next time. Well the next time came sooner than I thought! Sister McKendrick does the driving because she's senior companion and went around the block when this investigator didn't answer. I saw the guy again and made her stop. The feeling was so strong! It said GIVE HIM A BOOK OF MORMON!!! So I made her roll down the window and ask if he wanted one! Haha the look on her face was priceless! Needless to say he accepted. Haven't heard much from him since but we planted the seed anyway.

Other than that we've been pretty busy. We have to share a car with the elders in our area and we only have a certain number of miles we can go. The elders have been racking up the miles pretty quickly and our stipend is down to 15 miles a day. We corrected it yesterday by not even using the car. So now it's up to 20 miles a day. We have lots of kind members in our ward and they feed us almost every night. It's nice to get to know them and learn more of how the Spirit works in our lessons. We love church too! Plus I found out that one of my friends from mission prep is companions with the daughter of one of the ladies in my ward! It was so cool when we found out!

Justin! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! This is the most exciting yet aggravating time ever! It's a long wait but it's worth it! Read your scriptures, buy a Preach My Gospel, and get involved with missionary work now! You'll be thankful you did. I didn't very much and regret it. It's cool to see full time missionaries at work and to be with them when it happens. So go on splits with the elders! Challenge your friends who aren't members to read the Book of Mormon or to take the discussions or to go on a church tour! Get involved!!! And then your transition won't be so hard. I mean you'll still have to learn Spanish but that will come to you. I have to learn and I'm not even on a Spanish speaking mission. We've got Portuguese AND Spanish families here! Thank goodness for French class too! So congrats again and let me know how you're doing so I can help you! Oh! And the Missionary Portal will be your best friend and worst enemy. Do the activities before you head into the MTC but don't go on it to only look at the count down. No Bueno.

So! I think that's about it for this week! Finally got to vacuum and we're continuing to make it feel like home!

To answer some questions!

1. The weather here is fabulous! Not humid at all. Maybe because it's fall but it's still not humid. We've had storms the past couple weeks on and off. Lots of cloud cover. Sunrises are GORGEOUS! I'll have to get pictures.

2. I get along with my companion wonderfully! Some days are bad personally but I find ways to make them good and let go of whatever is frustrating or irritating me.

3. I feel a lot more settled in. My suitcases are put away and we're getting into a routine which is nice.

4. I'm doing just fine!!! Not gonna lie. There are days where it's difficult and all I want to do is go home to the apartment and stay in. But we keep going and laugh off the struggles. Yesterday was super windy! And we were wearing flowy skirts. The wind only blew mine around but Sister McKendrick wasn't so lucky. We laughed ourselves silly.

I love you all!

Sister Halverson

P.S. Get used to calling everyone Elder and Hermana Justin! Including yourself! :)



MTC District



The Indianapolis, Indiana Temple