1/28/13

Annie’s Letter

So earlier this week I thought of the GREATEST subject line EVER for my email to you guys this week. But guess what? I forgot it. SO I thought the one I put would suffice :-) Thank you all for your emails! I love hearing from you! And I am SO excited to get letters from you all soon! Sister Twitchell and I have been in a bit of a "mail famine" recently, which is really sad! But it's okay! Because we have faith that it will end soon! In case you're wondering: I am officially down to less than nine months! As you know, my 18 months is October 4, 2013. However, transfers don't fall on those days. So I could be coming home the next transfer, which is October 24. Just FYI. I don't know though, I still have a long time before I need to think about that :-). This week has been really good for us! Last night we were able to take one of our investigators, Reva, to a mission fireside. It was amazing. She felt the spirit so strongly! She is amazing! Everything we teach her is "ya, that totally makes sense" or "I've always known that." She is golden. She is getting baptized on March 9! Plus, she came to church yesterday, and she knows like EVERYONE! She is 17 and goes to Marysville High School so there are a lot of people there that she knows. During church yesterday she kept saying "I didn't know [insert name here] came here!" It was awesome. Her fellowshipping is great! Yay! And she actually knows Brooklyn too! Which is just amazing! Brooklyn came to church yesterday! We haven't seen her in a couple weeks, she felt like she got her answer and that it was no. Saturday night she called the Hoyt's and she asked for a ride! It was amazing! She has pretty strong fellowshipping as well. She might not be ready right now, but someday she will be! Brooklyn will join the church! It's going to be great! Such a great day! Also, we had Sister's training on Thursday which was AMAZING! It was actually all about training and improving our areas because... we will be getting DRUM ROLL, PLEASE... 60 SISTERS! Well we'll have 60 sisters in the great Ohio Columbus mission! We have either 19 or 21 right now! TRIPLING! How exciting! I learned so much and Sister Twitchell and I have been talking about ways that we can improve our missionary efforts and just be better and help the work progress here! Marysville has so much potential! We just need to figure out the best way to uncap it! It was a hard week for numbers here in Mayrsville, a really hard week for numbers. We did a lot of finding. The vast majority of our lessons fell through, which was sad. But we had great member involvement anyway and just had a wonderful week. We didn't find any new investigators this week, but not for lack of trying! We have some good potentials we are excited about though. One thing is for certain. Satan is a beast. He is just working his little tail off! He's hard to combat, but we have the power of God on our side and Satan really just doesn't have a chance! He may win small battles but he can NEVER win the war! Who's on the Lord's side? WE ARE! The fearless missionaries of the great OCM! Seriously, could there BE a better place to be right now? I think NOT! I'm grateful for the opportunity that I have, the privilege, of being one of the missionaries in the Great Ohio! That is a huge honor and responsibility and I feel very humbled to be here. This mission is truly GREAT! I love it. I love being here. I love working with the wonderful people. There really is no where else in the world I would rather be right now than here. Sorry this is really short this week, I don't have all that much to say. I just know that the Lord is blessing us and that He is with us in this work. I have a very strong testimony of that. Oh! This is really cool! Last night at the fireside, Elder Martin (who is the former stake president of the Columbus North Stake but is now the secretary for the OCM) was speaking. He has a son who just left the MTC. When he was in the MTC a general authority was speaking (one of the seventy, I don't remember which one). But he said (the seventy) you could be called anywhere...even the great Ohio Columbus mission! That's right! Even the GA's know that this is the GREAT Ohio Columbus Mission! How awesome is that!? We had a lot of fun adventures this week. Lots of walking, mom, don't worry we do stay warm. We bundle up so good, we're HOT even when it's freezing outside! We have loved it! Oh! And when I talked to Dr Giles on Monday he was telling me that he just sent his son off on his mission to... SANTA ROSA CALIFORNIA! Now, you may be wondering WHY that is cool. Well, let me tell you why. That's where Nate is serving his mission! How crazy is that?! It's a small world after all! That was super exciting. And I feel like there was something else I was going to tell you guys too that was super cool... Oh! So Shelly, a good friend of ours, was leaving on her mission. She goes into the MTC on Wednesday. She left on Saturday. But on WEDNESDAY she spent the whole day with us again, it was awesome. We went to district meeting and she even participated! We each had one of the eight fundamentals to teach and she taught one! It was awesome. She is going to be such a stellar missionary! She's just awesome. Japan doesn't know what's coming! Well, I can't think of anything else right now...and I want to attach some pictures so I think that's it! Thanks for being the most wonderful family in the entire world! I love you guys SO Much! Justin: Jon has written me a letter. Your turn :-) (Jon, don't forget to send the letter you wrote!) :-) Have a great week guys! Love you!

Challenge: get on mormon.org, make a profile and help spread the gospel that way!

Tata!

Annie

Pictures:

1. Go Buckeyes!

2. My hair was really cute this day...not after this though! We love these crazy kids. :-)

3. Sister Shelly Lundstrom!

4. Sister Twitchell, me and our detective mustaches from Sister's training!

Love you!

Landon’s Letter

Hogy Vagy? Kum Te Szimsz?

1 question but 2 different languages. How are you doing? The first is Hungarian. There is a hungarian family here in the ward. We visit them every other week. They are great members of the church. The second is Romnian. From the same family. I also know how to say how are you doing in Polish and in Korin. Not Korean but Korin. It's a language I never heard of before coming here. Any ways This week was a great week! We have been working hard. The only thing that is a downfall for us is we are suppose to have 1 hour long appointments but we could litterally talk for hours with some of the members. So always something to work on the be exactly obedient.

We have been blessing this week. We were able find and meet a new investigator, Nick Carson. He was a referral from a member and we were able to meet him. He is great. The first lesson we found out he has a firm belief in Jesus Christ. He was raised Jehovah Witness but he never was baptized with them. He has read some of the first of the Book of Mormon and he likes it. He came to church with us yesterday and it was a great experience. We were talking and he was telling me. You know you have it lucky to have been raised in this. The world is so rough and is trying to tear each of us down. You really are lucky to have been raised in this. That got me thinking ya I have been given this soooo freely. I can't believe of can't even imagine what my life would be like if I wasn't a part of this church. Where would my life be, what would I be doing, or would I even care. It definately is a huge blessing to me in my life. It is amazing what we can learn from our investigators and what we can teach them. We are both learning by the Spirit. If the Spirit is there in a lesson or when we are at church, we are learning from the Spirit. We were able to find another investigator this week whose name is John. We found him on the streets and he is a good guy. We have been really blessed this week again. We have been really focusing on finding. We have set goals and made plans for what we need to do to achieve those goals. So we are really focusing on finding.

I still need lists. I don't know when I will be going to Niagra yet but I still need lists from Megan & Justin, Natalie, Jon, and Rachel.

Rachel: Glad to hear that you are enjoying swing choir and jazz band. Don't worry it gets better the more you do it. Just make it a habit. I am glad that you won't be stressing out so much with your classes. Just remember to enjoy the time you are there. It goes by fast.

Natalie: Thanks for telling me about Cameron. Just try and find the good from college this sememster. Your time there is short and you are preparing yourself for the future. Just remember we have to have the bad times so we can enjoy the good times.

Annie: You are doing great work! Sorry I haven't written you a letter. I will try and write one today. Keep up the awesome work. I hope you are ready to train again. I hope you get to train 2 more sisters and atleast move a couple or more times.

Megan & Justin: Thanks for the letter! I am so grateful for all that you do. We have 2 fast talking sisters (Rachel and Annie) haha. I hope that things keep going great for you.

Mom: I will get you those things so you can show your kids. I am grateful that you and Dad took us to see these sights. I am so much more interested in church history now. I wish and hope we can go again as a family. Maybe. We'll see.

Dad: Thanks for all the updates. I really appreciate all that you do. Ya we will be careful out on the roads. I hope that you have a great week this week! I will send you a canadian flag and milk duds. Thanks for all you do.