Monday, November 25, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving‏

Hello Family and Friends,
"We must develop the capacity to see men, not as they are at the present but as they may become." -President Monson
Everyone is a child of our Heavenly Father and each and every person no matter what mistakes they have made, have the CHOICE to become something great. Lets be honest, I judge, people bother me.. Im working on it but here more than ever I am starting to see people and the potential they have. I love the people of Greenfield, in fact I was at the Halls  ( a members) house, and I love them, They are like my adopted family, but she prayed and by the end of her prayer I was in tears. I am so nervous for transfers and we haven't gotten the call yet. I dont know how to leave these people. Hopefully I wont have to. Anyways. AHHHH WE just got the call and WE are staying in Greenfield!! Yay!! :)

I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving this week.  How blessed we are and how much we have to be grateful for!! I never realized how amazing it is to have such a wonderful family. I didn't know it was so rare to have a complete family. So many here, and companions as well don't have that in their life. I am so grateful to have each of you in my life, your prayers, letters, and support mean the world to me!
This week has been pretty uneventful but we did have our branch talent show. It was a lot of fun and Reynold came!! Ahhh what a huge step to have him come, next step is church. I know he will come eventually, he just is going to need some time to get there. Oh so at the talent Show us sisters and the Elders and then Brett, who is a 16 year old boy from our branch, did the thing where you flip upside down and glue eyes on your chin and sing a song ha ha it was funny. I will have to send pictures and videos to you so you know what I am talking about!!

 Also we have been teaching a woman named Cynnie, I cant remember If i have told you about here, but she is wonderful. I had a really neat experience, We were sitting in her small, smoke filled house and I got the prompting to tell her about the atonement and how it isn't just for the sins or mistakes that we have, Christ also has felt every doubt, sadness, and hard time. Cynnie has been through a lot in her life and she blames herself for things that have happened to her. I know that as we continue to see her that she will have the desire to quit smoking and be baptized. She knows it is true and she has seen the joy that comes from coming to church and reading her scriptures. man oh man do I love her!! She even got us Christmas presents!! Yay!! It is a cross bracelet ha ha. People have a lot crosses here! Even if they are LDS ha  they have them everywhere in there homes, its kind of weird to me.
Oh and guess what Sister Love and I got 33 member referrals this week. Which is way way high!! President Nilsen almost fell off his chair and died when he heard that we have gotten 53 referrals in two weeks.  He wants to implement what we are doing throughout the mission. Neat huh? We are still continuing to have success in Greenfield and we are being so blessed!!
Man I know that this is a lame email. Nothing really happened this week so I guess that is it. Can you believe December is a week away!! Man where has the time gone. I will be home before you know it!!
Love you all
Sister Zwahlen

Monday, November 18, 2013

Tornados‏

Hello everyone!!
"You haven't failed, until you have quit trying." a result of diligence...

Sister Love, Jaden and I
This week was one of the best we had 3 BAPTISMS!! Roy, Nicole and Jaden were all baptized this week!! Such a miracle!! It was beautiful and we couldn't be happier. Greenfield has been so blessed this last transfer! Transfers is next week, we will find out Monday what is happening, Pray I stay in Greenfield. I love these people and I am hoping to stay. Pray I am needed here most. but obviously I will go where ever I am needed most!
Sister Love, Roy, and Nicole, oh and me obviously


Yesterday Sister Love and I were able to do our musical number in sacrament meeting. (I on the piano and Sister Love playing flute) It was perfect, the spirit was so strong and It was great!! I am grateful to have the talent of playing the piano so many here dont, well most ha also I am playing for the primary program next week. Pray for me! I need all the help I can get.
Also yesterday we had a tornado warning, So we had to go in early, it was raining so hard and the winds were crazy too!! but dont worry there wasnt a tornado that I know of, just the warning! So that is fun. I quite enjoyed that.

We also had Sister Specialized Training this week, It was a meeting for only sisters!! It was wonderful. President Nilsen talked all about marriage.. awkward. you should never talk on marriage to a room full of sister missionaries. They all want to be
married and its hard to focus. ha ha just kidding but it really was so good, I am learning more and more how important it is that I take advantage of every moment I am here. Time flys by and the things I learn here are going to stay with me and help me throughout my whole life. Its amazing how when i turn outward and focus on others, how much I learn about myself. I am finding out I have talents I never knew I had before and one of those is I have the gift of making people feel comfortable and people trust me. Its a really great asset to have on a mission as you can imagine. ha I still have a lot of work to improve on but who doesnt??
I dont know what else happened this week but I just wanted to leave you all with a challenge, As a mission we normally read 5 pgs from the Book of Mormon as a companionship, however as of November 1st we have started to read 10 pgs everyday. We will finish by Christmas. I challenge and encourage you all to do this. If you make time to read 10 pages everyday you will be so blessed. I have seen the difference it has made for Sister Love and I. The book of Mormon has such a power to it. It changes lives!!

I love you all,
Sister Zwahlen

Monday, November 11, 2013

Happy VeteransDay‏

Hello family and friends,

I dont have a lot of time today because we are driving up to Columbus for a Zone Fun Day. We are going to meet up with our zone for lunch and then we are going to play volleyball, basketball, and scratch?? Something like that! ha it should be pretty fun, but it takes away from everything we really need to be doing on our p-day. We live so far away from everyone else that we are driving most of the time. ugh ha but that is alright.

This week has been good we have seen blessings continuing to bless us. We have worked harder to be more diligent and I have seen how blessed we have been because of it. We have been teaching lessons like crazy, I think we ended up this week with 25. Which is a  huge improvement from what we have done in the past, but we have been getting the members involved, which had made all the difference. Please help the missionaries. Go out with them. Pray to have missionary experiences and then have the courage to act on the prompting when they come. The Lord is hastening HIS work and HE will guide you and lead you to someone who needs the gospel in their lives. 

This week wasnt too exciting. Sister Love and I did get hit on this week. Well actually we got chased down ha ha he was just asking us questions but he kept saying "dang you ladies are sexy." "All girls from Utah are good looking." stuff like that, so I asked him if he wanted to come to church and If we told him we were missionaries. He said no, but hey I dont mind he would have come for the wrong reasons anyways. but he asked us for our number and I was like "Why?" and he said "well because you are pretty?" I said "well you know we dont date on our missions" Man you should have seen how fast he ran the other direction when he learned that we werent going to date him. Ha it was awkward but hey it happens. 

Also I have adopted a lot of people this week. Reynold is one of them. I now have a third grandpa. He is amazing. I just feel like I was sent here to Greenfield to teach him. I have never felt like that with anyone here yet, and Reynold hasn't even come to church yet.. but he will. He is wonderful and I really just love him. He is going to put up a picture of sister love and I on his wall by his grandkids and I was joking and asked him what he would do if I brought him a lifesize picture of me and he told me he would take down the mirror in his hallway and put it there. ha ha funny man, and the sweetest old man you will ever meet, he will be the best temple worker in the world one day!

We still have 3 of our baptisms this saturday. Pray that Satan is busy elsewhere so that they all make it to Saturday. They will they are all strong and wonderful!! I am so excited for Roy, Nicole and Jaden. We also were teaching Roy and Nicole and Nicole had a friend there and the friend asked to be baptized ha ha so we are going to start teaching here. and the great news is that we taught the law of chastity and word of wisdom and she committed to live them. That is impressive. We havent even taught her any of the other lessons yet. 

Anyways this week has been great, Congrats to Kaydon on his mission call!! He will do great in Mexico. Happy Late Birthday Dad. 

Love you all.. Have a great week.

Love Sister Zwahlen

Monday, November 4, 2013

Skunk in the Barnyard.‏

This week is a quote from Elder Holland, in one of the talks I was reading he was talking about how people say, "What I don't know wont hurt me." and he says " I can assure you that nothing will hurt you more than what you don't know." I love this quote and I don't know why exactly I just know that I do. I guess I took it, that we cant just sit back and not take responsibility because we "didn't know any better", we need to be active and accountable. I am working on being more accountable this week. I have noticed that sometimes I like to blame things on everyone else instead of taking responsibility. Not any more. I am going to be accountable from now on. So watch out world. or Ohio. Which ever.
This week was wonderful like usual, First off to answer the big question that is on everyone's mind. Sister Love, Sister Love is from cottonwood heights Utah. Surprise, surprise. we are all from Utah here. ha just kidding but a huge majority of the missionaries are.
We had another miracle this week. We have been praying to teach Jaden a 9 year old boy since I got here. and FINALLY after much prayer we got permission from his parents and started teaching him yesterday!! He is awesome and he is going to be baptized on November the 16th. We have 3 people on date to be baptized that day so we are so excited. And if all goes well for us and the Elders there will be 5 baptisms for the Greenfield branch, which basically doubles our numbers. haha just kidding. Also Roy (Our father in the father/daughter investigators) came to church all by himself this Sunday!! It shows how committed and how willing he is to learn and be baptized. He is wonderful and we are so excited for them!! Sister Love and I have been truly blessed here in Greenfield. which is a "hard area", a "doesnt get a lot of success area" Well watch us prove that wrong. There is no such thing as a bad area. The lord will bless us according to our faith. 

YEs our house is Giant. We dont need all the room we have, but im not complaining, we can actually run in our house for exercise it is that big ha  and Yes we share clothes. Mostly, she borrows my clothes but I dont care. ha it makes in nice to have more options. 

To explain the title of the email. I held a skunk this week. Never did I ever think I could say I had done that in my lifetime. Nor did I ever care if I had, but we were in exchanges with our sister training leaders and they have an investigator who has three pet skunks so I couldnt say no to holding it so that I could get a picture and then I was done. ha but how many people can say they have done that.  Also I ate frog legs this week. That was neat, tasted like chicken. 

Hurry take the picture so I can put the skunk down
Also Sister Love and I have been practicing for a musical number, that we have been asked to play in sacrament meeting in a couple of weeks and then the week after that I am playing the piano for the primary, for their program. They don't have a piano and they use cd's to practice so they wanted an actual piano for the program. Tell the Warners thanks for preparing me for this. I wouldn't have guessed that I would be playing the piano for the primary program but i am glad I was able to practice at home before I came here.
This week we had zone conference and a clean car check and we won a key chain!! Awesome I always wanted one of he key chains you get when you have a clean car. ha the conference was a lot of fun!! and the Greenfield branch feed us. I was so proud of them and I was telling all the missionaries that they were my branch!! ha It was a lot of fun to have them there. 

Us and some of our branch at zone conference.
(Sister Evans, Bro and Sis. Borsini, Sister Malloy, Sis Posy, and her daughter, me, sister love, elder jacobson, nelson, and shields, and in the front president and sister Snavely)
So let me tell you that I have become someone I didn't know I could be. Apparently I am bold. and I tend to get along with people ha ha but I might be getting a little out of control. The other day we were talking to a man and his neighbor was in his house playing the guitar and singing. He was really good. So as we were leaving and walking away. I turned around and knocked on the mans door. and when he answered I was like " Hey you are really good. I just wanted to let you know." Ha and that was it and then we walked away. um awkward sister Zwahlen. Good one. ha I didnt even bring up the gospel. ha that man probably laughed about me for days. ha but no big deal, just planting seeds here in Greenfield. Who am I? Who just knocks on peoples doors and tells them that? Oh well ha ha I laugh when I realize the things I do without thinking about it. 

Also we are teaching a man named Reynold. He is wonderful! I am going to adopt a 3rd Grandpa. He is so sweet and reads the book of Mormon like crazy. BUT he wont come to church because he doesnt like to be around people. ha I like him more and more. He tells me I'm persistent and he is stubborn so we are never going to get anywhere, but shhh dont tell him that I am winning. He will come to church sometime soon. I just know it.  Also He told me that I was going to make a wonderful wife one day because I was going to tell my husband exactly how it is and get what I want. ha ha darn right I am! ha just kidding.
Well anyways things here are really great!! We have a zone fun day next p-day so I dont know when I will be able to email or if I will be able to. So I love you all and I hopefully will email you next week. I love you all, congrats to Courtni on her mission call she will do amazing!!

Love you all,
Sister Zwahlen