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

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

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

Happy Halloween

The beautiful Ohio

" If you really concentrate on trying to walk the way He walked- loving, caring, serving and obeying each step of the way- one day you will look up and discover that His path has lead you directly to the throne of God." -Elder Ballard. I LOVE this quote. I have been sharing it with families this past week. It is so true. Christ was that perfect example and if we follow that example he is going to lead us back to our Heavenly Father.

 

First off thank you family for the Package. The caramel apples were perfect and so delicious!! I am a huge fan of the Sister Zwahlen inspired apple!! yum! and the hat is adorable I love the color and I have been wearing it everywhere because it is freezing here and the wind just freezes my ears off!! Sister Love wants a bow on her hat and she wants the color purple or gray or black ha ha she isnt picky so any color works wonders. All the candy I already ate. ha just kidding. I havent but mmm the reeses are amazing!!  Sister Love and I have been practicing a musical number for a baptism for the Elders but it got canceled so now we are practicing for sacrament meeting. Oh and I made the pumpkin bread and added chocolate chips and it is delicious! I have been eating it for breakfast and throughout the day too!!  Heidi's family also sent me a package with some witch fingers and brownies and barbie bandaids. It was great!!

last weeks Hayride

 

In Ohio they dont celebrate Halloween on Halloween they just do it on Thursday, so obviously since it is on Thursday they do it on Thursday but normally they just do it on the week of Halloween. but yes we do work on that day but we are in our apartments early that night I think we go in at like 7. So that will be fun. We can eat candy and make ourselves sick. Oh yea and we can study and all that spiritual stuff. ha ha

 

This week we were able to put two people on date for the 16th of November. They are a Father and Daughter, and they are progressing so much!! We love teaching them and they have been coming to church and driving to members houses to have lessons. Its wonderful! We are even starting to kind of teach the son, He believes in Greek Mythology and isnt religious but he doesnt run out of the room when we pray now so that is good. Anyways, we are way excited for them. We are also teaching a man named Reynold he is probably in his 70's but he is stubborn but so wonderful. All we can see is him working in the temple one day. He is progressing but he wont come to church because he doesnt want to be around people ha so we are working through that one.

 

This week I have been reading chapter 4 in PMG and it is all about recongizing the spirit. It is an amazing chapter. I have been working on listening to the promptings and as I have listened I have been blessed with amazing experiences. I am also finding out what it means to "feast upon the words of Christ." I cannot get engough study time. I love reading the scriptures and studying for the resources I have. I hurry and eat lunch so that I have extra time to study!! It is so unlike me to like to read but I have been so blessed to have the desire to learn. I am finally really understanding the things I am reading in the scriptures! ahh missions are the greatest. I have only been here almost 2 months and I have learned so much. I am grateful I have 16 more months to continue to learn. I sometimes pray that they extent the time sisters can serve so that I have extra time here on my mission. ha ha

 

So Sister Love hasnt been sleeping ever since she got to Greenfield so that has been really hard. She functions amazing without sleep by the way. I wouldnt be able to do it. but anyway it is really starting to take its toll on her so we are going to see the doctor and see if we can figure things out, she has been having other health concerns too. I am probably the worst companion, because I just want to go, go go  and she just wants sleep ha so we are working on it but I am grateful that we have such an amazing mission president and his wife. They are always there and they remember what is going on with each of us to they check in on Sister Love to see how she is doing. I am amazed how they remember so much!! Man they are so inspired it is amazing.

 

Oh and I saw the first snow for the season here. It didnt stick but I didnt like it. I told the branch that I was being transferred to Hawaii. Ha I wish right? Well anyways this week I have really learned that I didnt really have the talent of loving people. infact I didnt really love people at all. but I will just tell you I love these people. Its overwhelming the amount of love I have for them. The brach is my family and I love being around them. turns out im a people person! Its a miracle what happens when you push your self out of your comfort zone. "There is no learning in the comfort zone and no comfort in the learning zone."

 

I love you all!! Thank you so much for the prayers, support, and letters!!

 

love,

Sister Zwahlen

Sister Leaman & Sister Zwahlen

Shelby and I  (shelby is a branch missionary, she is wonderful and planning on going on a mission next year when she turns 19)

The lady in Purple!‏

"The word hope is sometimes misunderstood. In our everyday language the word often has a hint of uncertainty. For example, we may say that we hope for a change in weather... In the language of the gospel, however, the word hope is sure, unwavering, and active."  I love that. I am studying Chirst-like attributes and hope is one of them. Also I am reading "our search for Happiness" by elder Ballard and it is wonderful!! Everyone should read it.

This week has flown by. I cant even tell you how fast time moves here. They all say that by my half way mark it will go fast. Well if time moves any faster, I wont make any progress because I wont have time to even blink. Its crazy. This week has been calm and mostly drama free. Completely drama free is not possible here, but things have seemed to calm down so its really nice.

Grace is improving. She is responding and she smiles so that is a pretty good sign, I dont know what they think will be her final outcome, but for her circumstance I would say she is doing pretty well. Samantha isnt progressing right now. We arent allowed to teach her or ask about baptism until we have been given permission from her mom. So we just continue to pray and we know it will happen one of these days. 

Transfers was fun. Sister Leaman is gone like we said and so now it is just Sister Love and I, and let me tell you I am moving up in the world, not only am I not the greenest of the missionaries, I moved from the cot to the bed, I have a desk, I sit in the front seat of the car, man life is good!! ha ha I cant even imagine moving up anymore in the world. This is the life. :) Oh also at transfers we role play (ew) but anyways we role play all day, everyday. and so we were playing a game where you have a list of ideas that you had to use to try and get someone interested on the " door step". It was just fun and funny like I told them that I liked the picture they had hanging in their house and they would say that their ex wife forgot to take it with her. Awkward, but anyways we had to try all the suggestions on our list until we guessed the one that they had picked to let someone in. So sort of like trying to guess the right pass code to get into their home.  Well of course I get picked to be the missionary and role play in front of a bunch of missionaries. Then President Nilsen is standing beside me and teaching us how to do door step approaches. Unfortunately he didnt know what we were doing and just thought I was terrible at door step approaches and so he made me practice like 12 thousand times in front of everyone!! Ahh it was embarrassing. After wards the AP's came up and apologized that that had happened to me. ha that was a bad explaining of the story but I don't know how to tell it through an email.

This Saturday the branch had a hayride at one of our members farms, it was a lot of fun. It was potluck and then they told the history of the farm and there was a bon fire and they told a story about a lady in purple standing in the cornfields and then they had the youth dress up as ladies in purple and walk around as the hay ride was going by so it was a little creepy. The next day me and sister love accidentally wore purple, and members said they saw an Amish dressed all in purple with her purple cap at Walmart and  so they were telling all of us at church about it. It was funny we got a good laugh out of it. 

Jimmy is amazing and he is working on his family history so that he can do their work at the temple. He is totally going to go through the temple a year from now and I am so excited for him. He is dating a girl that is in another state and she doesnt really like us so much because she feel threatened by having two girls with him teaching him about the gospel. Sounds threatening right? ha anyways she calls him constantly while we are there and he is getting so annoyed with her. but I tell you this story only because he has started calling her "dragon lady" haha I think that is so funny. I mean really its quite sad but I laugh every time I hear him say it.

This week I have helped members make salsa and applesauce. It is wonderful. I am learning so many skills and I am going to be the best homemaker you ever met by the time I leave Greenfield. Dont worry I am still doing missionary work and we are only helping as service, not for fun although it is fun.

This week has been wonderful we are teaching a father and daughter and son and the father and daughter came to church this week which is a huge step!! I am so excited to keep working with them. Also we found 2 new investigators this week and they are both named Carl. go figure. then we flipped open our sex offenders list and the first name I saw was carl. Ahh what is with all the carls?? I dont know but hey its fun and I dont mind. I taught RS this week on the work moves forward and the spirit was so strong all the ladies were crying and it was great. I think it was good because sometimes our lessons go a little off topic so it was nice to keep them on track. Also the Elders have a baptism next week and sister love and I are doing a musical number!

Well I guess thats it for this week. I love all of you. Thanks to the young women and primary for their packages and letters. although the young womens note didnt make any sense it was kind of a disaster by the time it got to me but I ate all the candy already. Also if I gain weight here on my mission I am going with the excuse of proverbs 28:25:)

Love you all

Sister Zwahlen

Happy Columbus Ohio Day

Hey family, because the libraries are closed we are emailing at a members dr. office. and there is only one computer. So this is going to be a really short email because of lack of time. I dont have an hour to email like usual! 

We just got our transfer call and drum roll please... ha ha I am staying in Greenfield. which is good, I am excited, Sister Leaman is being transferred and Sister Love and I will be here, most likely just us two. So it should be fun. Me and Sister Love get along really well. There is a lot of drama that we get dragged into here so I am hoping that it changes because I dont do drama! ha but I am loving it and I am excited to stay here, we have a lot planned for this next transfer. I guess the lord needs me here to make sure they happen huh? 

Jimmy was baptized this Saturday and confirmed yesterday so I had my first baptism and it was wonderful since I was here to start teaching him as well. So I have been here the whole process to see how much he has changed. He really is so smart and He has grown tremendously since we started teaching him. He is going to do great things so we are excited for him. 

Life is good, and I am loving life still. Well I love you guys!! I will have to email you everything else later. Also, apparently animals are my best friends, I cant even count how many cats I have had on me this week. 

Love, sister Zwahlen

"I don't do politics"

"You come unto Christ to be yoked with him and with his power, so that you're not pulling life's load alone. You're pulling life's load yoked with the Savior and Redeemer of the world, and suddenly your problems no matter how serious they are, become lighter." Amen to that!! As Blaine said "I'm in the real world now" and let me tell you Satan he is such a trouble maker, but I have seen how my problems have been made lighter as a turn them to Christ and rely on him. I have been studying hope and faith this week. I encourage you all to read about them in PMG and in True to the Faith they are amazing. 
Coming to you all from the Greenfield Library. So to answer your questions we just come to the library to email. In our branch there are five missionaries. Two elders and us three sisters. We are in different areas though, but we work with each other in all of the areas of our branch. Our tiny branch is made up of one of the biggest areas in the mission. There is a ton to cover so a car is a nice thing to have or we would spend almost all day walking to one place. 

Pretzel Sandwich
This week have been amazing. why you ask? Well let me tell you its because of the Amish! They are amazing and their food is spectacular. We went to Bainbridge last week and we went to some Amish stores and I was in heaven. They make these pretzel sandwiches that you could die for, oh and their donuts. I could go on for years about how good their food is! Also it is more in the country and the leaves are all starting to change and so it is beautiful. but anyways we were driving along and all of the sudden a deer jumps out in front of us across the road and then jumps right into a tree. and back across the road. ha ha I got the biggest kick out of that. ha ha I am still laughing thinking about it. I cant believe he hit the tree. It was bizarre. Needless to say I am going to live in bainbridge next to the Amish the rest of my life. I guess I am going to need a horse and buggy! 

This week also we were visiting with a Less Active, and she has her grand kids that live with her, and this lady LOVES politics and she could sit and talk about Obama all day long. She is funny but we were telling her that Conference was this weekend and as we were about to leave we asked the little grandson who is seven years old if he is going to watch conference and his responds was "oh no, I don't do politics" ha ha We explained that it wasn't politics, but it was funny to hear out of the mouth of a seven year old ha

So this next weekend we have a baptism for our investigator Jimmy and this week was wonderful. We have been working with him to stop smoking and he had been having a hard time with it so we asked him if we could see his cigarettes and he was hesitant, but he finally did and then we did the math of how much it costs him to buy a pack vs. having eternal life and being baptized and he of course picked baptism. So then we went with him outside and crushed up his cigarettes. and took his lighter. He would crush up his own cigarettes but then he finally did crush up his last one. It was fun for everyone. (well he probably didn't think it was fun) but hey now he isnt smoking and he is so ready to get baptized. He is amazing and he wants all the blessings so he realizes what he needs to do to get them. He is working so hard to live all of the commandments and we are so excited for him to get baptized on Saturday!! 

We have an interesting experience this week as we were tracting we ran into a man named Buddy. He told us that we were just who he needed since he was probably going to jail soon for have cocaine in his house. We talked a little about how through our Savior all of our wrongs can be made right. It was neat. So we made a return appointment with him and unfortunately he wasnt home, but all of his "friends" (about 7-8 of them)  were sitting in his backyard smoking and drinking. They were not such nice men.  We asked them if Buddy was home and they were telling us he was one of the biggest drug dealers in greenfield and that he was inside. So we went and knocked on his door. and the men were telling us things like " hey, I will be buddy for an hour if you want" and really disgusting things. So we ended up leaving without talking to Buddy which was probably a good thing since, we cant go in his house if there are drugs in there and also we weren't so comfortable with his friends. We are going to try another time when his friends aren't there and hopefully he isn't in jail so we can teach him. The thing is we are so protected here on our missions. We are smart about what we do and we are protected for doing the Lords work. 

Oh and one our investigators boyfriends told us that if we ever came back he would call the cops on us. So hey that is pretty neat. We are just going to have to work through that one ha ha

This week has still been a little stressful but conference ended it on a good note. We watched conference at the church and the sessions are from 12-2 and 4-6 so it was different but it was wonderful to hear such good messages that will help us be better missionaries. The last session we watched at the Hall's house they are amazing and they fed us after, but while we were there a severe thunderstorm ran through and so  conference kept turning off. Let me tell you when it rains here it rains. We were grateful to be inside. They said we got like 3 inches of rain from the one storm. it was a lot of water. no wonder it is so green here!! Well I guess that is all for now!! I love you all!! Thanks for all your letters, emails and prayers!! They mean so much!! 

With all my love

Sister Zwahlen

Peeling apples with "big mama" so she could make pie filling and apple butter and apple sauce.