I knew you long before you were born

"Just when all seems to be going just right challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow." Elder Richard G. Scott. I love this quote. I haven't been going through any major trials, in fact I really haven't had any major trials in my life, so I guess the Lord doesn't feel that I need to grow. Ha just kidding. I think that for me personally, I learn from others. Sister Love has had 3 deaths of friends back at home within the last couple of weeks and it really has been hard for her. She is amazing though. I get to see her grow, but also through her experiences I am learning how to be more compassionate, and how to reach out to those in need and truly do as the scriptures say to "mourn with those that mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort."  Those trials and hard times we go through in our lives are a blessing, and a way for us to grow, to rely on our Heavenly Father and to exercise the power of the Atonement in our lives.
Man, I could go on for days. I love this work. "How great is my calling." I feel so blessed everyday. In fact you have never seen a prettier sunset than here, and you have never seen a more beautiful night sky. I look up every night and I am just amazed. (Sorry Anna, I know that you said that the sky in Arizona is beautiful, but you can't beat an Ohio country night sky. :) )

There isnt much to talk about this week. Since I just emailed Wednesday and nothing in Greenfield has really changed. However, we had AJ and Ashley and their kids at church on Sunday!! yay! It was a perfect Sunday to have them come. We had a member from the High Council come and speak on Grace and Faith. It was perfect, it just reinforced exactly what we had taught them earlier in the week. When the family walked in, it was like they always had been there. They looked like a Mormon family already! Ahh I am so excited for them.
Also we had Freddy come to church. He is wonderful. He was so nervous about coming, he thought that everyone was going to judge him, but everyone was so welcoming and friendly.

I have high hopes for this transfer and I know that we are going to be able to bring many into the waters of baptism. Including Ashley and her family. Alma right now is on date to be baptized on the 8th of March. Please keep her in your prayers, that she will be about to comprehend all that she needs to by that date.

Also, we got a new Elder in the branch this week. He is super awkward. ha I met him as we were helping a member move. This is how the first time meeting him went. 

"Hi, I'm Sister Zwahlen."

"Oh, I knew you LONNNGG before you were born."

"uh, that is really creepy"

(I grab a box and walk away)

"I meant in the pre-earth life" (said as I am walking away)

So um that was weird. Sister Love said that he looked really confused as to why that was creepy of him to say, and so she told him not to worry about it, I just say things like that all the time. Its true, I do. I am not going to lie. Anyways It is kind of exciting. It gives us things to laugh about. Ha

Well I guess that is about all that has happened this week. I am grateful to all of you. Have a great week. Happy Birthday to Kasey!!

All my Love,

Sister Zwahlen

Freddy Kruger

Family and Friends,

We are still waiting on the good ole transfer calls. I have no idea what is going to happen. I wouldnt be surprised if I got transferred, I am really calm, which is surprising since I am normally really nervous. I just have a strong testimony that I will be put where I am needed. I have complete trust in my Heavenly Father and his plan for me.  Update. We just got the call, and we are both staying in Greenfield. Again... ha ha well I guess I will just stay here my whole mission with Sister Love:) I am not so sure how excited she is to be stuck with me again..

This last week, we were able to host an exchange with a couple of sisters. It was so much fun. I love being able to learn from other people. Everyone has such a different way of doing missionary work. I love seeing how others do different things and then apply the things I think work well for me. Sister Love and I have been teaching this man named Freddie and he is awesome, he has had a really rough past but he wants to change and recognizes that in his life. Anyways from the moment I met him I have been calling him Freddy Kruger(not to his face) but anyways we were looking at our sex offenders list and guess who is on there?? Freddy, I knew I called him that for a reason. ha just kidding we are still going to teach him. We will just be careful. He is old and harmless. I like him. He has elvis all over his apartment and he just sits there and talks and forgets to breath. So that is unfortunate but its ok.

We got to meet with the family we are teaching. They are so wonderful. The mom Ashley, has been reading the easy picture book reader of the Book of Mormon with her kids and they have been having big long conversations about what they are reading. When we went to visit them, she asked us if it was normal to get the chills when reading the Book of Mormon.. uhh yea!! That is the Holy Ghost. She is awesome and she just keeps telling us that she cant stop smiling. It is really amazing to see how much they are progressing. Their little boy has been really sick so they havent made it to church yet, but I know that they will this week. I have faith.

Also this week we watched "On the Lords Errand" the movie about President Monson. Oh  my goodness it is so good!! Everyone needs to watch it if they havent already. What a testimony of our living day prophet.

I hope you all had a great Valentines Day this past week.
Thank you so much for all the letters!! Especially thank you to My family for the goodies and the tights they are so nice.. Except get this. This week the weather has been in the 50's it is so nice. I cant believe it. We upgraded from our heavy winter coats to our lighter coats.

Well this week really hasnt been all that exciting. I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Love,

Sister Zwahlen

Winter Olympics‏

"Remember that your confidence and faith should be in Christ, not yourself. Rely on the spirit rather than your own talents and abilities." -PMG This is a good lesson for me this past week. I often think too much of myself. I like to be independent and I forget that I need to be more dependent on His strength not my own. As to our strength we are weak, but in His strength we can do ALL things.

This week has been really amazing. We have been blessed with finding so many people. They arent all investigators... yet. But we are going out and doing the work. We have met so many nice people. Sister Love and I have been praying for a family, that would be strong in the gospel and a really great addition to the Greenfield branch. and when I say we have been praying, I mean for months now. Finally we were blessed with a family. We were tracting at an apartment complex that is really pretty scary, so we always avoided it, but we felt like we needed to tract there, every door, was rejection or no answer. It was cold and our toes were frozen. However as we kept knocking all of the sudden everyone answered and we set up several return appointments. We met a lady named Ashley and she didnt seem interested but told us we could come back the next day. Being doubtful that she would even be there when we went back, to our surprise she let us right in. We taught the restoration and the spirit was so strong. It was amazing. She told us that she was really interested and that her kids and her would be at church, but her husband was not interested. THEN, she came to our youth activity where we played kickball and she told us that she had showed her husband the pamphlet we had left and he said that he wanted to come to church as well!! AH um can you say blessings?? We are so excited. AJ and Ashley have 3 kids, two girls and one boy. They are so cute and we cannot wait to have them come to church and to continue to teach them. Please keep them in your prayers!!

So as you saw, Yes we won the winter Olympics, that was a shock. When they announced the winners we all just sat there confused. and then we finally realized that we had won!! ha it was so funny!! It was a lot of fun though. I love my zone but I am really scared that I am going to be transferred next week. Oh yea that means that my p-day next week will be Wednesday, so I wont be emailing until then. 

I got to experience my first Ohio Ice storm this last week too. It snowed and then the ice covered everything. our car was a pain to scrap off and then we had to drive to columbus that day. It was slow and scary, but we made it. We have also gotten stuck several times this week. Always with the blessing of having men around to push us out. We truly are being watched over!!

This Wednesday, Sister Love and I are hosting and exchange with another companionship. We are way excited. basically that just means that we have sisters come into our area and we train them and show them how we do things here so that they can learn and take it to their area. We are doing this because our sister training leaders, were asked to pick one companionship they thought would be good sister training leaders and start to train them. So this is part of that. It doesnt mean that we will be called as sister training leaders, but it also doesnt mean that we wont. So we will see. I would love the opportunity to serve and learn with a bunch of different sisters. So I am excited to have this opportunity to have them come and learn from them.

I guess that is about all from this week. I love you all!! have a great Week.

Sister Zwahlen

The Results are in....

From the Great Ohio Columbus Mission Facebook page- 

In celebration of a record breaking year of helping others to the covenant of Baptism we had two Olympic venues for competition, this zone won the Columbus Cup.

Winter Olympics

Hello Family and Friends. 

"I can promise you that you will bless others to help them recognize the spiritual gifts with which they were born. Every person is different and has a different contribution to make. No one is destined to fail." President Eyring

I love this. I think too often we find ourselves comparing ourselves to others and what they can do, and we cant. Our mission president always tells us not to compare ourselves to other missionaries, We are needed to be ourselves because it is those special talents, abilities and personalities that make it possible to touch people in a way that others cant. It is the same with each of us, in whatever situation we are in. We are placed where we are, for a reason. As we strive to develop those talents we have and focus on others we are going to bless our own lives and the lives of others around us. 

Every time it snows 1inch here people go into hiding, and raid the stores incase they get snowed in. Ha ha it is so funny, they cancel school and the Library was CLOSED again today. Lame!! So we are once again at Brother Borsini's office emailing. 

Today we have a mission "winter Olympics" I have no Idea what that means but I guess I will find out soon enough. Hopefully it isnt too intense. I dont really like to get competitive, and on our Zone Call this morning our Zone Leaders told us that they are going to win, so we better win. um ok. We have the least athletic zone in the world, you should try and see us play volleyball, it is embarrassing. 

This past week has been pretty good. We had our sister Training Leaders down in our area on Tuesday and it was a lot of fun. We work with them a lot and it is so fun to learn from other missionaries. Also we met a man named Jamie this week, and he is amazing. We taught him the restoration and the spirit was so strong, He said he wanted to be baptized read the Book of Mormon. I love when we get to experience these lessons and meet these people. It makes all the rejection and slow weeks, so worth it. Jamie recently got out of prison and is working hard to turn his life around. It is amazing how the Lord prepares people, and places them in our path. A lot of times it takes a humbling experience for hearts to soften. It is like in the book of Mormon, we read over and over about the pride cycle and when we have trials that we humble ourselves that we are able to feel the spirit and have it testify of the truths. 

Well I guess that is about all that has happened this week. We have met a lot of people this past week that have a lot of potential so hopefully we will be able to see them this week and things will pick back up!! Thank you so much for all the love and support. I love you all.

Sister Zwahlen