Sister Melly Trains with Deluxe Hamburgers and Moves Two Stairwells

Sister Melly and Madison - Best Friends Playing Dress up

Dear Family,

Llooooooooooooovvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeee you!

This week is transfer week, as you may have guessed by now. The suspense has been great so I have had to study patience this morning because I could not focus otherwise or sleep last night. But this morning when we got to the Trail Center (just a few minutes ago) Elder Watson pulled us into his office and told us what is happening. Sister Bergeson is staying in Millard and getting Sister Watson for a companion and I am going to West Maple to be with Sister Brown! Sister Brown is from Arizona and just finished being trained by Sister Baker. I will now have served in all the same areas as Sister Kusnerik( my trainer) who by the way is moving back to Omaha for a job, so that will be weird. She started in Millard, then went to West Maple for a long time, then ended in Oakview. So I guess I will be spending the rest of my mission in West Maple. Kind of funny. But, good news. . . I get to drive! Sweet! I am so excited. Ha-ha

So I will be staying in the Willet apartment building, probably for the rest of my mission. Woe is me. I just have to move two stairwells over and will be living with the Trail Center leaders (who now are companions serving in the same area, so there will be no more Trail Center leader companion craziness) Sister Proctor and Sister Arnold. We will have a lot of fun, I am sure. It is probably a good thing that I don’t have to move too far because I don’t know if I could fit all of my stuff into my suitcases/a car. West Maple is a good area, so I am excited.

OK, in other news, last week we went bowling with our zone. That was a lot of fun, but they let us wear jeans which turned out to be not such a good idea. I have definitely gained weight since I have been on my mission. They still fit, but they were not so comfortable.

On Thursday, we had district meeting. I trained on prayer. I talked about how when we first learn to pray, we just get down the basics of opening, giving thanks, asking for things and then closing. I compared this to a hamburger with only a bun (opening), patty (asking), cheese (thanking) and bun (closing). We then went through the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 5 and pulled out all the additional things that Christ shows us to pray for/about like asking for forgiveness, forgiving others, praising God, etc. For each thing we added more toppings to our burger until it was very deluxe with bacon and extra cheese and all kinds of veggies and sauce, etc. I like analogies a lot, so I thought it was a lot of fun. Obviously, since I came up with the idea. The rest of the meeting, the drawing of the hamburger was on the board where we all could see it, so we were very hungry for a hamburger, so after district meeting we went to 5 Guys for lunch :)

 



Sister Bergeson and Sister Melanie and Silly Elders

This last week, we have been seeing some great progress with one of investigators, Walter. His wife Julie was baptized in February. He told us a few days ago that he is 75% of the way to being baptized and expects that he will be baptized in the next two or three months. He still comes to the BOM class every week but normally does not come to church because he is a realtor and works every Sunday, so he says he is too tired to do both. This Sunday, he does not have to work, so he is coming to church! We are so excited. Yesterday, Julie came to the Trail Center because she wanted to see Sister Belka and Sister Graham. She brought her granddaughter, Madison. While we were waiting for the other two, I took them on a tour. Madison and I got pretty attached. We had a lot of fun packing wagons and dressing up and eating the candy corn that you sent. It was perfect because Julie is going to get Madison to come to church so that she can see me. Unfortunately, that plan is going to fall through because I won’t be in that ward anymore. If we didn’t have church at the same time, I might try to get permission to go to both sacrament meetings, but West Maple also has church at 9.

 

We also met a lady named Cathy, she invited us right in for something to drink. We chatted about faith and the plan of salvation and then she took us on a grand tour of her house. Before we left, Sister Bergeson offered a prayer (Cathy is catholic, so she is used to recited prayers) and by the end, Cathy was crying. She felt the Spirit. She is taking us (well, Sisters Bergeson and Watson) to dinner tomorrow night.

 

Also, a less active lost sheep (her records are not in the ward) from the Lakeview ward showed up at the church while we were there studying one day and told us that she has decided that it is time to come back to church with her one year old son, even though her nonmember husband is not in favor of it. We got to sit and teach her for a little bit. It was really cool and exciting for her, even if she is not in our ward.

I feel like my letters lately are getting shorter and shorter. They just started a new thing where we have to email both President Weston and Elder Watson each week, so that is taking up a larger chunk of time that usual until I get used to this whole thing.

The rest of the week was a little tough. We had a few slow days with a lot of tracting, but we found a few good potentials and are now teaching a couple more  less-active families. We also got a referral from mormon.org that we are going to try tonight, so hopefully that goes well :)

 

Love you!

Sister Melly