General Conference and Interviews

Hello Friends and Family!

I think we had a really good week. We have a lot to keep improving on but we had a really good lesson the other day with our investigator Lisa. She's been having a hard time lately and is in a rather dark place. We are helping her let light come back into her life which she is flourishing with. It's a hard process for her at times but I think the worst of it is over. She has loved the Book of Mormon and the feeling of the Holy Ghost. She radiates light. She's learning that the feeling of the Holy Ghost is something she wants to keep working towards. It's been fun being in a trio and teaching her. Other appointments are falling through but we're trying and setting up appointments with others and always trying to get a return appointment.

I'm truly excited to get out and tract this area because it's a different challenge and I've been looking forward to working hard with the members to try and strengthen them too. :) I really want to unify this ward. They seem super awesome but I feel like there's something missing. I really want to start a member wall in our apartment and help them to get to know the missionaries and us get to know them and ASK FOR REFERRALS!!! I've been doing so much better about it than I have in the past. I make it a point to just ask. It comes up naturally in the conversation and we have fun. :) I feel good about being here. Really I do. I want it to flourish. I know it can too. :)

This general conference was really hard. I actually was told yesterday that the Relief Society President in my last area just passed away from an unexpected heart attack. It was a blow and I was so so shocked especially when we had just talked to her weeks previously. It was also a blessing and comfort to me as well at an unexpected answer to my career prayers. Elder Renlund's talk helped provide peace as well as President Nelson's. Both men talked about the heart and their careers in the medical field and the problems that they overcame. This really helped me and I felt peace and God's love for me and for His Daughter that just returned home a few days ago. While I'm still sad at the unexpected loss, I know she is doing the Lord's work on the other side. :) I loved hearing from the General Authorities and from our beloved Prophet.

Love,
Sister Halverson

Fishers of Men!

Hello Friends and Family!

My week has been a whirlwind of crazy! Fishers is so much fun! Again, I've already learned so much and it's been about a week. I've also hit over a year. That's sad. I'm doing good! I've been pretty busy this past week! It's been nice. :) We've seen more miracles like putting people on date for baptism and seeing many members. I really hope we'll be able to keep them on date. They only have like 3 weeks before they move back to the Philippines. We had an elder from the Philippines and they'll be able to help teach his family when He moves back. It was so cool. :) Michal accepted the invitation to be baptized and has also been put on date for the 30th of October! It was so cool and the Spirit was so strong. We shared the message of the Restoration and asked if he had any questions. He is from the Philippines and has been searching for the truth. He's been to so many different churches and he likes this one. He went to the temple open house and loved it. We believe his father was with him in the temple the day he went. Both of his parents are less active members and he wants his family to be sealed. I've only met him twice (One of the times eating Balut....I would not recommend it.....EVER) and he's been reading the things we have given him. We're looking forward to him watching Conference and being baptized. It'll be my first baptism! I'm praying really hard for him to continue on this path.

The sisters have really been kind to me and have welcomed me here. I was nervous at first to be in a trio but they've been really good. :) We've been working hard and implementing ways to get out and do work. I've been getting SO MUCH BETTER at asking members and the people we teach for referrals. It's been wonderful. I needed the fresh start and so far SO GOOD! :D I still have things to improve on but I'm doing good and I'm going to continue doing the good that needs to happen here. :)

So Balut is a boiled duck egg with a 1 day old Chick still inside. Yes. I ate a boiled baby duck. :P But it's ok! A relationship is kind of worth it when it means we become friends and he can accept the Gospel and trust us! Michal likes to feed us weird stuff. Like last night. Gave us chicken hearts and other various organs... Woo. It wasn't terrible. Not my favorite but not terrible.

We also spent Saturday serving! We helped the boy scouts with a recycling project and spent time running the awards stand for the Special Olympics in Avon!!!!! It was so fun! The missionaries gathered with us and helped cheer on the players and they had tons of fun! It was sweet to see them light up when we gave them their medals! :)

I hope you all have a fun week and keep on keepin' on! I love and miss you!

Love,

Sister Halverson

Sister Munoz and I

Sister Munoz and Sister Thalman with me!  My new companions.

Welcome to Fishers

Hello Friends and Family!

Transfers have come and gone. Well. I got moved out of Crawfordsville. I'm now in Fishers which is an hour east of Crawfordsville which I'm 100% ok with because it means I'll be able to go to Jesse's baptism. He's going to be baptized around Christmas and I'm going to go back. It's a rule here where you have to be within an hour and get permission to go or get a member to bring you or have it on Monday to go. Monday is P-Day.

And I'm going to show President how things are done here in Fishers. Here's the kicker about my area which is where I think I'll actually thrive. We're not allowed to tract. It's strictly Personal Contacting and member work. I want to create a member wall again or at least get photos of the members or a little info on all of them. That would be super cool. Also, we want member presents at everything and have been asking if anyone could use service or a message. So we're going to see what happens and how well this will work. I'm going to get in shape. 5 to Fabulous. I'm on it this transfer.

I'm in a trio which is SUPER weird and I thought I'd actually DIE when I got told the news. I think I can handle it though. I think some previous assumptions are incorrect so I'm going to fix that in my mindset. They're really sweet and have welcomed me into the area. It'll be good to be here and do a lot of what I've been doing in Crawfordsville for the past three months. Wow. That's so weird that I've been in 5 areas now. This one felt like home from the very first minute. I feel comfortable here doing what I've been doing in other areas which is LA/RC work and strengthening the members. I'm excited.

Other than that I've been doing good. We taught a couple of super strong lessons so far and they come from members. Which is good. I'm excited too. I'm going to have a baptism. It'll be the first time a baptism happened in my area. WITH ME IN IT. :) I feel like a lot of things are actually coming back up into play. Like the whole of my mission is finally adding up to a grand finale. I'm going to have fun here. :) It's been great so far. Now it's going to be even better. :)

I hope you all have a good week!

Love and miss you tons!

Love,

Sister Halverson

Transfers... :(

Hello Friends and Family!

Well. Bummer. We got the call and I'm not sure how to handle it. I literally cried all night Saturday and all morning Sunday. We had Stake Conference so that was interesting sitting there trying not to cry. It just about killed when we had to say goodbye to Jesse. We are both out of Crawfordsville. :( I'm so so so sad. I love it here and I'm not ready to leave. We've seen miracles here! Jesse is doing awesome. He's committed to finishing the Book of Mormon by Oct. 3! He wants to be baptized around Christmas so Courtney can be home for it. It's so cool! It'll be good.

This week was rather uneventful. We had Stake Conference. President Ellis is really cool. We heard great talks. Had dinner with the Samuelsens, they posted a video of Sister Anderson's birthday on Youtube. That was interesting hearing about that...

But it's going to be good. New area, new companion, new chance to learn and grow together. Make more friends. Enjoy the Fall Weather. Etc. :)

Love and miss you all!

Love,

Sister Halverson

Temple Time!!!!

Hello Friends and Family!

We had a great week this week! Started Tuesday with a bang and had more lessons in a single day than we had in a while. It was great! We've been trying and trying and trying and that's something I'm super proud of. It's been a great week! I'm doing great! Jesse is awesome. He is progressing along so wonderfully. He's about to get to the good chapters in 3 Ne. Chapter 11! It's so cool to see how he's progressing and he's really open with concerns with the Clark family because they're the ones helping him to learn more without pushing him. He's doing great though! We're going to call Jim and Este tonight to set up an appointment. We haven't been able to get in contact with them in a while. It'll be nice to meet with her and Jim again. Crawfordsville is doing good. We're getting out and trying and working and making contact with people. We got out and tried yesterday which is more than we can say for other days. It's been a slow and steady progression. We're hoping we can meet and/or beat our goals this week to end things on a high note. It'll be really good for both us and Crawfordsville.

It's been a great week here and I'm going to continue working hard. I'm exited to see what happens with calls. I feel like I'm now more prepared than ever for whatever changes occur. It'll be great!

We also went to he Temple this last Wednesday!!! I got to do a family name from Mom's side and have been looking for her ever since in Familysearch. I'm so happy to have been able to provide my ancestor with the opportunity to accept the work done on their behalf. It felt like they were just waiting for it and was a big sigh of relief. I love the temple and doing work. I want so badly to become a worker when I get home. :) I'd love it.

Love and miss you all! Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!!!!!

Love,

Sister Halverson

 

Same Shades - Mom sent these for us!

A Member's Backyard in Crawfordsville, IN

 

Temple Trip

Hello Friends and Family!

We've had a stellar week! We went to one of our outlying areas this week and were able to contact a referral that had requested a Book of Mormon. Our ward has been doing this Book of Mormon marking program that helps outline the main points of the Book of Mormon to give someone a baseline of where to start if the whole thing seems super daunting. It's been interesting to see where it goes and the verses that are highlighted. Sister Anderson had this marked copy and we gave it to the referral in Bloomingdale, IN which is one of our southern most cities. It was nice to be able to visit the town and also see where another member lived. We'll have to make appointments with these members and that is what we plan on doing on Weekly planning so we can have appointments and also visit with them. It's been wonderful. We've been trying to get out and talk to more people, nothing short of talking to the mechanics who had serviced our car before the Temple Open House.

We've been meeting with Jesse and he's seriously SO solid.  We've been working hard with Less Actives and the members in the ward and have been seeing the fruits pay off.  Like this Thursday for instance.  We've been working in the outlying areas and were able to get to the southern most part of our area and contacted people down there.  We're hoping to visit all of our Less Actives and Members on our ward roster which will be nice and a good way to get to put names to faces with the pictures we've been taking.  We're going on Tuesday to do it again and find more people on our list.  Hopefully we can meet with a girl who wants to learn more about the church and be baptized.  We're hoping the Spirit can soften her older sister's heart to let her meet with us.  She made it a goal to be baptized this year and we want to help her with it.  So hopefully we can do that and help our members get to the Temple too.  We have new and returning members we want to see starting to learn about the temple ordinances and how special they are to us.  :)  I have a family name from Great Grandpa Holmes side of our family and I'll be going through for her tomorrow (September 9th).  I'm so so so excited to be able to go and do that for her.  It'll be a special experience to say the least.  :)

 

We spent Sunday night in West Lafayette going to Why I Believe. It's been a LONG time since I went to one. And it was great. An Elder from Sao Paulo, Brazil bore his testimony of how he was converted and the blessings he's seen since being on his mission. It was inspiring. :) I learned a lot this week and I'm trying to improve. All in all we've done great things and have felt so much better about what we're doing and where we're going. :) All I have to worry about now is not getting sick as the leaves start to fall and Autumn comes in to play. :) Indy Falls are GORGEOUS!!!!!

Love you all!

Love,

Sister Halverson

Another Great Week!

Hello Friends and Family!

We had a great week this week! We set a goal of how many lessons we wanted to see and made a steady progression each day. We got phone numbers from a potential who had been coming to the youth activities for a while and actually made it a goal to be baptized this year! We're going to meet with her Wednesday after Activities and see what she wants to do. It's been incredible that the Members have gotten hold of so many potential people before we did and all it takes is to ask our members for referrals. We truly had a great week and next week will be even better. Jesse wants to read the Book of Mormon first before he decides if this is something he wants to do. He's in Helaman 11 as of now which was farther than our first meeting with him and he's progressing! We're so excited to see him keep finding if this is true for himself. He came to church yesterday and participated in the Gospel Principles lesson on Repentance and said the closing prayer! We committed him to start thinking about a day to be baptized. We have another lesson with him this Friday. We're so excited.

It's really been a great week and this next one will be better. We started putting the pictures up on the wall for our members and are continuing to go out and contact more and more less actives. We went with a sister in the ward to go to homes of members she knows so we can catch them when they'll be home or help us figure out when a good time will be to contact them. I'm going to be following up with a member we met with last week to see when a good time to go and visit them will be. We're also going to contact a referral tonight with a member. They requested a missionary visit and we contacted them to set up an appointment. Nervous but excited. This area has been so centered on referrals and building trust with members. I've been learning so much and trying to do things differently than I have in my other areas. I love being here. It's definitely been trying but so rewarding as we're pushing ourselves and getting out and trying to contact more and more people. It's been wonderful. :)

Also, I get to go through the Temple on the 9th! I'm so excited!!!!! It's so so so pretty and I'm grateful that I have family names I get to take through. It'll be a first for me. I've taken others family names through like for Amanda Stokes when we went on our Senior Trip but I haven't taken my own names through. It'll be an incredible experience. I'm so looking forward to it. It'll be on the day I actually entered Indiana one year ago. CRAZY!!!! 6 months left. Holy Cow. So much has happened this last year. Let's see what happens these last 6 months shall we? :)

Love,
Sister Halverson