Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving from your Canadian Missionary! I have already had two Thanksgiving dinners, and tonight we are having another with our new Recent Convert E! Then after that we are going to the Relief Society Presidents house for pie, THEENNN we are going to the Ward Mission Leaders house for pie as well. I am going to be rolling into bed tonight!! Well, because it is Thanksgiving, I better tell all of you 10 things I am grateful for! 

1. The Godhead!! I know that each member of the Godhead works perfectly to help me return home safely to Heavenly Father! 

2. The Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. How blessed are we all to live at a time where the fullness of the Gospel is Restored?!

3. My wonderful Mother who has always been  by my side, even when I was doing something wrong. Thank you mom. (Behold Thy Mother)

4. My Daddy who understands how to provide for his family temporally and spiritually. I adore you.

5. My brothers Bear, Porter, Nathan, and Brigham. If every woman on earth had brothers like mine no woman would think that they aren't good enough or pretty enough.

6. My sisters Boonie, and Natalie. Both of my sisters are 100% themselves. I think that is remarkable.

7. President and Sister Clayton. They are a perfect examples of true followers of Christ.

8. All of the teachers I have had in  my life. I would be nowhere with out the coaches, school teachers, and church leaders. 

9. My friends! I am amazed that I even have friends! Yes that includes all of my companions and mission friends.

10. All of the people I know in Ontario. I love being a missionary here. 

Well... Here is the semi quick summary of my life here in Canada!

Monday: We went shopping and I got all of my winter stuff! I was so excited!!!!!

Tuesday: Oh my goodness! We taught ESL for the first time this last week!  A member who used to teach ESL saw this confused Japanese Lady at a bus stop and was impressed to talk to her so after talking with her for a while she volunteered us to teach ESL! Haha the family is wonderful. I felt really funny as I was acting out words. This last week we talked about checking out at a store. The father, who knows English pretty well, asked us, "What does, 'Whats going on' , mean?" Haha he told us that he thinks it is a silly question to ask because they know what he is doing. Oh English slang. But Sister Bell did a great job explaining. 

Wednesday: This was a really cool day. The ward made over 200 apple crips for a food bank. It was super sticky and messy! E came and had so much fun. She was excited that she was at her first "I'm almost a member" activity. She had a blast and the entire ward has fallen in love with her. We also all got apple crisp at the end so all the dirty work was worth it! They were selling the pies for $2.50 so we couldn't resist buying two. But don't worry we gave them to K and P, two investigators.

Thursday: This was the start of our Thanksgiving dinners! We had dinner with two of the coolest people in St. Catharines. They made such a good dinner. We like them alot. :) But that morning we went and helped our friend R make FIVE lasagnas! It was so fun! Get this, instead of cottage cheese in the middle she put sour cream and mozzarella cheese! Oh the things I learn on a mission! We were really excited to help her. Her daughter, after watching a friend get baptized, decided to get baptized Sunday. So R suddenly had to plan a baptism, her anniversary, and Thanksgiving all in couple days. She is awesome. :) We were also able to go a Less active members house. Her son told us that we all have buckets over our head and he continued to poor "water" into my bucket. I love the imagination children have, but when I said that out loud he put me into my place and told me that it isn't his imagination. Anyways, his mom is such an amazing woman. She has been through alot. Her son is autistic, and she just had a baby girl. And to make things harder, her family lives in Columbia. As we were talking to her she started to cry and told her that she really just needs strength. She told us that she would love to have us back each week. I love her so much. 

Friday: E GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Happy Day!

Saturday: Our investigator P went to E's baptism. She told us that going to the baptism made her even more excited for her own which is on November 6th. We taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and after the lesson she casually brought up that she had had a dream that she got baptized and as soon as she came out of the water she heard a voice say, "This is the right decision for you." We were so pumped! We were all so excited! She told us that she wants to get baptized asap! So heres to a very busy couple weeks! :)

Sunday: Another Thanksgiving dinner and church!  I LOVE CHURCH.

Well it was a great week, Sorry I didn't get to write more! I love you all. I know that Heavenly Father loves you! And so do I! 

Ponderize? :)

Wow. Wasn't conference great? I could go on for hours about how great it was but. I only have a couple minutes to write an email. :)

Baptism and Confirmation

E passed her baptism interview!!! This wasn't a shock because she is awesome. But she is getting baptized this Friday! She will then be confirmed Sunday! She keeps asking us.."When can I go to the temple?" She is very excited and will be a wonderful member of the church. Highlights of teaching her this week are. 1. She told us that she is HERBAL now and that she doesn't drink tea. She also got us all hot chocolate will we taught her a lesson. 2. She came to all four sessions of conference, took notes, and had alot of questions answered. 3. She is pumped to come teaching with us next week! 4. She wants to serve a mission in a year from now. 

The ward is going to have four baptisms this month! Three of them are 8 year olds. Bishop has asked us to teach all of the kids about baptism so. The girl that got baptized yesterday was so prepared and was a great example for the other two girls. Actually one of the girls has been struggling to make the choice. Her dad is an RM but has gone less active and anti. Her mom is a faithful faithful woman who is doing all she can to raise her children in the church. As the little girl saw her friend be baptized and as she felt the spirit she is getting baptized this week! And the week following this one the other little girl is getting baptized! YAY!!

We made a pro and con list with K about baptism. He was able to recognize that the cons that he has are not even close to the pros that he has. But still, he just doesn't know if he wants to be baptized. We are still teaching him! He enjoyed the last session of conference and is still wanting us to teach him more. He has great questions. I know that K will be baptized it may not be while I am serving in St. Catharines or maybe even while I am serving in Ontario. But I know that he wants this in his life. He just has to decide if God will bless his life more than he can. 

Temple

​A recent convert, J, will be going to BYU this weekend. He is so excited! Porter, Nate. Would you mind if I gave him your contact info? Maybe you could meet up with him and show him the ins and outs of campus. He will also be going to the Salt Lake City temple! He is so excited to participate in baptisms for the dead. This is his next ordinance he can make as a member of the church. Pray that he will have a good experience. 

We went on exchanges this last week. Since President Clayton has changed the mission vision. He has asked the sister training leaders to double up on exchanges for the transfer. I was able to go to Hamilton with Sister M. She is awesome. She has graduated from BYU in Psychology. She plans to go home and be a marriage and family  therapist. She will be heading on home in January. I loved being with her for the day! I hear so many people talk about how they really needed a certain person for the exchange. Well, I needed Sister M. She is such a wonderful example of obedience and love. And I learned so much. While we were in Hamilton we were able to find a new investigator, invite 30 people to watch General Conference, ​help a returning member realize his potential to be sealed to his wonderful wife, and invite a couple people to be baptized. It was a great day with lots of miracles. Over all the thing that I learned on this exchange was how important it is to help people recognize Heavenly Father speaking to them and how that feels. Sister M was always helping people make the connection that what they were feeling was the spirit. I think that it would be a great idea for you all to record how Heavenly Father speaks to you. How amazing would it be if we could really understand perfectly how the spirit talks to us. I do know that each of us have been promised that we will have the spirit with us and we keep God's commandments. As members of His church we get to partake of the sacrament. Listen the the words said in the prayer. I promise that as you are doing all you can do that you will have His spirit with you ALWAYS. It is possible! And when we lose that spirit pray to the Father and ask for it again. I know that even though Adam and Eve separated us physically from God, that he gave us the Holy Ghost so we wouldn't be spiritually separated from him. Pray, take the sacrament, keep the commandments. 

I love you all. I pray for you all. I pray that each of you will find the desire to become a better disciple of Christ. And I pray that you will let that desire work in you until you are standing before God. It is worth it, I promise. Heavenly Father has promised us all he has in hope that we will see how his plan is worth it. I know He loves you. And that He knows you. 

Being sick and being a missionary

After 48 hours of being shut in we actually did missionary work this week! It was such a good week, even though we didn't get to meet with as many people as we had wanted to we did see miracles!!

I am just  going to break it up into days with just a few things from every day.

Monday: Oh this was such a fun day spent in the clinic. :)  That is all. 

Tuesday: This was a very interesting day. I woke up at the normal time of 6:30 a.m. I knew that working out was not the best thing to do while you were sick but I wanted to follow all of the rules! I decided I was going to read the Book of Mormon. Fifteen minutes later I woke up and Sister B told me to go back to sleep. I did and I didn't wake up until 4:00 p.m. It was insane! Sister B spent the day coloring around 10 princess pictures. :) After I finally woke up we got a text from E. She asked if she could invite K to church this Sunday. We could not believe our investigator wanted to invite our other investigator to church. We laughed and texted her back that she could. She called and told us all about how she introduced herself and told him that he needs to come to church. He said he wasn't the churchy type but that he would try. She continued to go on and tell us how she can't wait to be a missionary and invite everyone to church. She is a gem. :)

Wednesday: We finally got to leave the house! We had district meeting in the morning, then I was sent back to prison. But while we were there Heavenly Father allowed us to feel the spirit as we did weekly planning. We also got to go to dinner with a member! We had fish 'n' chips. It was good! Then we taught E! She had so many awesome quotes. Like I said.. a gem. 

Thursday: We met with K!!! He finally accepted a solid baptismal date to work towards! In our lesson we talked about baptism and confirmation. He told us that he does not have any objections and that he does believe it is true. He told us that he wishes he could sit across the table with Heavenly Father and ask him for help and that he knows he needs change in his life. He told us about some concerns that he has and he started to cry. It was a very humbling thing. We told him that prayer is just as effective as asking Him face to face. The day before K told us that he prayed that I would feel better. He had never asked Heavenly Father to help another person and he loved the way it made him feel. The member that we had with us is so awesome. M is our landlord and he was baptized 8 years ago. He and K have similar stories and personalities and whenever M bares his testimony it helps K so much. I have a HUGE testimony of member missionary work. Without M, K would have stopped listening a long time ago. 

Friday: We met with our investigator C! She is from Nigeria! She is studying at Brock University to become a surgeon. She is 17. She told us that she felt the spirit as we taught her and that she would read the Book of Mormon and pray and ask if it is true. She also said it makes sense that there would be another prophet on the earth today. We agree. :) We also were able to teach E again...This was the day that she received four witnesses that she needed to be baptized on October 9th! Pray works everybody! That night we taught one of the primary girls about baptism! She is getting baptized this Sunday and boy oh boy does she know a lot. She knew the answers to every question and is so excited! I think it is awesome that when we are young are faith is so strong. She has a beautiful testimony and we could see it radiate from her eyes. 

Saturday: We spent a sufficient time with the Spanish people again. We love them! We found a new investigator! Her name is P and her daughter N! She really loved to play so I played catch with her and  tried to carry on a conversation with Sister B and her. I am so  grateful for Sister B. She is such a solid missionary and while she was talking with P a felt the spirit. Before we went into the lesson I was having a hard time feeling the spirit. Sister B and I had argued about something, which was my fault, pride is annoying isn't it? Anyways, I just was not feeling the spirit and Sister B allowed me to feel that again. She is a 10/10 missionary. We taught E her final commandment and set up her baptismal interview! We met a LA Spanish family and were able to say a few things in Spanish but were able to find out what they needed! 

Sunday: We went to the Spanish branch for the first time! I loved singing in Spanish. E Fasted! Fast and Testimony meeting is always powerful. K came with M to a fireside. :) 

Well, It was a great week. So many other things happened. But the most important thing to remember is that Heavenly Father allowed it all to happen. I love being a missionary. I love the promise of obedience in D&C 82:10 

I love you! 

Browser likes to go tanning because it is cold in Canada. (Dont worry mom it wasn't on.)

Being sick is no fun! 

Sister B colored a lot when I was sick.

The latest from Canada

Hello Family! Seret Lek! (That is I love you in Hungarian.) This was a wonderful week! I will apologize now. This email may or may not be very long but I will do my best. :) 

May I just start by telling you all how great mom is? I just love her so much. She wrote me a wonderful email this week. :) Aren't we all lucky to know her? I am so excited about all that happened in this last week. It was a wonderful week as usual. We are now in Spanish work and English work covering the St. Catharines ward and the St. Catharines Spanish branch, our recent converts are the best, as well as our investigators.

Yes, Spanish work. Funny Story. So Elder J, my district leader from the past two transfers, was a Spanish missionary. He and his companion Elder S were covering the branch located in St. Catharines because the only thing I can say is El Libro De Mormon testifica de JesuChristo, and even though that is really good, I would need to know a little more to be able to help people. Anways, Elder J left the area and Elder S never was a language missionary. We were at a meeting last Sunday with all of the WML's, Bishops and Branch President's, and the missionaries serving in the stake and when we split into groups talking about how we can help the work move forward we saw the Spanish branch members talking to President Clayton. After, they came up and talked with us and begged that we would help them! We told them that we would LOVE TO. Last night we were meeting with President M and Brother A and while we were discussing the needs of the people here we felt the spirit! I was really nervous to do this but I felt Heavenly Father witness to me that this is what he wants us to be doing right now. We asked them to mark all of the people who are less-active and he marked all but three families on the list. We have a lot of work to do! And we are so excited! Please pray for the branch! 

My oh my, our recent convert J is amazing. He is going to school at Ridley College. (It is seriously like Hogwarts, you all should look it up and see how cool it is there.) He doesn't live in Canada but he is boarding here. He is from Ohio and some of his buddies from home told him that if he ever wanted to draw closer to the Savior he should read the Book of Mormon. He listened to them and ordered a copy, read it, met the missionaries, and was baptized three weeks later. He was just got back from summer vacation and is now starting into grade 12. When we were meeting with him we asked him if he wanted to prepare to do baptisms for the dead and he said, "Oh yeah, I actually am filling out my mission papers and I am going down to BYU to tour the campus. I will probably just go to SLC and go do baptisms." So yes, he is amazing. We asked him if he had any friends that would want to learn and he told us that he would invite someone to come to our next lesson with him. Well, he did. Her name was A. She told us that she was looking for direction in life and loved how passionate J is about his religion. We taught her the Restoration committed her to come to church, pray, read (CPR), and be baptized. She accepted all of the invitations!! It was so cool because while we were teaching J testified  of the truthfulness of everything. He will be a great missionary. After we got out of the lesson we found out that A was not living in our area so we would have to pass her on to another set of missionaries. But don't worry. Before we left our visit with them they gave us four referrals of other friends who would want to learn. Heavenly Father blesses his missionaries. But this is a perfect example of how he blesses all of us with missionary experiences. THE GOSPEL HAS BEEN RESTORED!!!! Tell a friend, invite them and the missionaries to your home, and allow Heavenly Father to do the rest. 

You know how I told you all about the no sugar thing? Well, I lost five pounds doing that! I am so excited! Hopefully I can continue to be healthy! yay! OH, and last night when we were talking with President Mencia he was telling us that we will never be fed better food than by the people in the Spanish Branch. Soo...stay tuned to see how much weight I gain this next week. :) 

E is doing amazing everyone. She is reading the Book of Mormon faithfully every day for thirty minutes. She is praying for understanding and truth. She is also praying that her boyfriend will realize that the church is good and will bless him so much. She wants to be baptized on 9 October so we will be able to be here to watch her. She invited Sister B and I to her wedding and she is planning on living in my basement sharing a bunk bed with Sister Be (OH yeah, Sister B wants to live with me for forever so I offered her my basement. Funny Story, ask me about it someday) So she is doing wonderful. :) I will have a wonderful story for you all next week! 

K is also doing better. He stopped progressing last week. He hasn't been keeping his commitments which is so sad becasue he was so close to his baptism. He just doesn't want to accept the truth yet. But yesterday Sister B felt like we should invite him to go to a baptism in St. Davids. A member took us and him to the baptism and all of the talks given were perfect for him. We were asking him what he thought and he loved the service. The entire ride home we talked about what his baptism WILL be like when he gets baptized. Later that night he told us that he really felt the spirit at the baptism and was thinking about getting baptized. He told us that it was getting hard for him to deny the truthfulness of the gospel. :) This next week will be an awesome week with his progression and I am excited to tell you all about it!

-- 

Sister Chelson 

Je Taim Toi!

Heavenly Father  knows exactly what all of his  children need! Sister B and I have been working with this wonderful family here in St. Cats. The Mom and the daughter are active, but because of the death of a father the 2 boys have fallen away. The oldest son, who is LA, is dating a non member. She begs him to come to church eachSunday and for the past couple weeks she has been every time. We knew this was the best thing any missionary could ever wish for, a non member begging her less active mission age boyfriend to come to church? What missionary doesn't dream of this?! Well, every time we planned on asking her if she would like to learn more we both felt the spirit tell us not to. Yes, we were confused but we listened.

Sister B and I have become really close with her. She is our age and she has a really cool name, its E. She plays sports, she is hilarious. She is just so great. She comes to church all of the time and she is always at FHE and dinner with her boyfriends family so we have gotten to know her well. She was so sad when she found out it was transfers. She asked us if we could give her our emails so she could email us each week. When we called the families home and she heard that we were both staying in St. Catharines she jumped up and started dancing... they all thought it was a little strange buuutttt... this next paragraph explains it. 

Last Monday at FHE she pulled Sister B and I aside and she said, "I prayed last night for the first time. I asked God if you two could stay here for another six weeks and you did." She continued to talk about how she knows that God wants her to learn from us so we stayed here to teach her. We invited her to learn more and she said yes. She texted us last night asking when she could be baptized and what she needed to do. She also told us that she had been reading the Book of Mormon all day and that she had been looking up some blogs about Mormons. Her personal favorite was Al Fox talking about the Atonement and how God loves all of his children. She told us how inspiring it was. 

"Being a goof with Sister B"

Heavenly Father is preparing EVERYONE in Ontario to dram closer to him. Our responsibility is to follow the spirit and teach and invite people to come unto Christ when they are ready. 

So, you may be wondering. Where is Sister L in all of this goodness? Well, the Lord has called her else where and she is now home with her family. It was a very strange week! Monday night we drove to Georgetown to take Sister O to her area to pack. Tuesday we were in Brampton at transfers until 3:00 p.m. Wednesday Sister L woke up with severe pain and we spent the day in the clinic and on the couch. Thursday we were once again in Brampton at the mission home (I found my nice free new coat). Friday & Saturday it rained ALL DAY and everyone and their dog cancelled our appointments. Sunday we were in Hamilton in Stake meetings! It was so crazy and some how we still had time to teach people! 

Friday we met with a Returning Member who is having a very hard time overcoming a smoking addiction. We talked about the Atonement and how Christ can help him. After the lesson he had a new found desire and hope to stop. But we told him that he needed to take baby steps (baby steps to the elevator...What about Bob?). We talked about the times in the day he smokes the most. He said that when he is bored he plays solitaire and when he plays he smokes. So I told him how much I love desserts and how I have also been trying to stop eating them. He promised that he would not smoke while he played solitaire and I promised I would not have sweets! So far it has been good. Some members took us to Avendale ice cream which is like coldstone I think? I don't remember if that is what it is called. But anyways. I totally did not get any ice cream!!! I felt so sad, but it really did help me understand at least a little bit about how he feels. 

I am so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I know that no matter what addiction we are overcoming he is the one who will help us be completely healed. And not only addiction but sadness and pain. Everything can be made perfect through him.  I strongly and boldly testify to you all that Jesus is the Christ! Because of him we will live again, death has no power over us. Because of Jesus Christ Satan also has no power over us. We can be made perfectly pure if we will let him. He will not make us clean against our own will. I know that we are sons and daughters of an all knowing, all powerful God. He is our father and we are created to become like him. Now is the time to step up and allow ourselves to reach our full potential. Don't let someone who can not further his potential ruin your eternal godly potential. Turn to Christ! Follow the Book of Mormon's teachings and find out how you can honestly, "Come unto Christ and be perfected in him." 

Je taim toi!  

Sister Chelson 

A cool mailbox

This week in Canada

Wow! Transfer calls were last night and Sister B and I will be staying in St. Catharines!!! We will be in a trio for the entire transfer! That is really really exciting! Her name is Sister L. She was in my zone for my first transfer. I wish I knew more about her so I could tell you all about how wonderful she is, but I have only talked to her once :) But what I do know is that she is a powerful missionary and she has been serving for a little bit longer than I have. I am excited!!

This last week we were able to go to the Temple as a mission! It was so wonderful. I was able to go and do the Temple work for Elizabeth Bubach. I know that the work that we do in the temple is real and that our family is waiting for us to help them! I am so grateful for the temple. :) Thanks Daddy for sending that family name. Go and seal that family together now!!

This last week was such a wonderful week. We were able to meet with so many different people. :)

Our investigators are doing awesome! We had a really good finding this week! We were so busy one day that all of our appointments seemed to be thirty minutes later then when they were actually supposed to be. So while we were rushing to teach a family we saw this awesome guy with a bandanna carrying boxes. So we ran across the street and we asked him if he needed help. HE told us that he didn't need any help so we started talking about God! He started asking us questions and my companions being missionaries like the ones in the Book of Mormon started to answer all of his questions through the scriptures. After talking for a while he told us that just the other day he had been praying for something good to come into his life. We told him that this was an answer to his prayers. :) We set up an appointment and are going to be meeting with him again this week! We had another instance very similar to this but this time he was telling us how he and his friends were just talking about how Christs church MUST be on the earth today! We told him that he was right and then after talking we set up an appointment to meet with him this week. :) Heavenly Father will always place people in our paths, and he will always put words in our mouth so we will be able to touch the hearts of the people we meet. 

Have any of you ever had a headache so bad you can't open your eyes? This last Saturday I woke up with a headache. I just brushed it off and went on with our day but progressively it just got worse. After dinner we were going to go and drop off papers for the ward council members so we were going to be driving for the rest of the night. I didn't think that it was really safe for me to be driving because I wasn't feeling very good so Sister B drove. (She was very excited to drive in Canada for the first time. Haha it was the most adorable thing ever. She was grinning from ear to ear.) Anyways, as we were driving my headache got worse. We decided to have Sister O sit in the front with Sister B and have me lay down in the back. Well, while I was sitting in the back it got worse and worse. I couldn't open my eyes it hurt so bad. Then came the stomach ache, then came the sweating...I was in so much pain. I have experienced pretty bad headaches with the concussions I had in high school and I have never felt so much pain in my life. I was just silently crying in the back seat and I guess I must have looked pretty bad because Sister B and Sister O called the District leader and told them that I needed a blessing. We drove back to the church and when the Elders pulled up they told me that I looked so sad and sick. I don't remember much of this but I guess I yelled out the window to them that I was dying.. I am so grateful for the blessing that I received. The District Leader, Elder J, gave me such a wonderful blessing centered on the power of the Atonement. After the blessing they all insisted that I go home and sleep. As I was saying my prayer I felt so bad. I told Heavenly Father that I was sorry I couldn't do his work that night. But that I had tried my hardest. I know that is all he asks of us is to try. I am so grateful for the priesthood. I know that it has been restored. I was able to wake up the next morning with only a slight headache, and now I don't have one at all. I know that because of the Atonement we can all be healed spiritually and PHYSICALLY. God loves each of us so much. Right now while I am away from my Dad, I know that I can ask for a priesthood blessing and that it will come from the same source, my loving Heavenly Father. 

I love you all. I hope you have a great week. Know that I am praying for you and that I am so grateful to be serving my mission. You all have helped me so much.   

-- 

Sister Chelson 

Trio, People We Teach, Families, Prayers.

Well this is exciting news! I have been on my mission for four transfers and I have had seven companions!! Saturday night after Sister B and I had planned for the next day, we got a call from President Clayton! Anytime we get a call from the mission president we know that he called for a specific purpose but he loves to small talk before. So after we talked about the weather and about our day he told us that we would be picking up our new companion Sister O in Hamilton the following day! I feel so blessed to have had so many companions! Heavenly Father must know that I love to learn, that is why he continues to send me PHENOMENAL companions. Sister O is from Alpine, Utah. She is majoring in music at BYU, lets just say our singing in the morning has gotten a little bit better. :) She has been on her mission for 4 1/2 months at the end of this  transfer. I love her! She is so outgoing and loved the cookie dough Sister B and I made yesterday which automatically made me love her. She will be serving with us in St. Catharines for the next week until transfers! Keep our trio in your prayers! 

A couple weeks ago Daddy in his email talked about having our scriptures be our friends. Well, one of my best friends is in D&C 82:14. That scripture is what the CTM is basing our mission vision off of! Sister B and I were blessed to teach 34 lessons this last week! I am so grateful for all of the people living here in Ontario. 

R and C: Wow, when we first started meeting with these two they just wanted to tell us that we were wrong and that The Book of Mormon was not the word of God. Sister B and I continued to pray to Heavenly Father if we should continue to meet with them. Sometimes it was soo hard because we "knew" that they would never listen to anything that we were saying. One day Sister B and I went to go teach them a lesson, and we were actually going to tell them that we were going to dis-continue our meetings with them. As we were praying, we felt inspired to tell them that we have a series of lessons that we teach people about what we believe in. We told them that while we teach people these lessons we invite them to pray, read The Book of Mormon, come to church, and to be baptized as Jesus Christ was. Shortly after we told them all of this they told us that they would LOVE to continue to meet and that they would be baptized if they knew that this was true. We made sure that we studied out the Restoration from both the Bible and The Book of Mormon. The morning of our lesson with them I was praying after my personal study. I told Heavenly Father that I had done all that I could and that I trusted that he would make up the rest for me. I asked to be able to remember the scriptures I read and I closed my prayer. As we taught them we were able to pull out scriptures from the Bible and The Book of Mormon. Some of the scriptures we read were from studies weeks ago! I am so grateful to be a missionary for our Savior. Without him I wouldn't have anything to teach people about. I wouldn't be able to bring hope to people. I am grateful for the Holy Ghost and the promise that I have from Heavenly Father, "For it shall be given to you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say." (D&C 100:6) It was such a pleasant lesson and the message was received so well that they invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner. :) 

Other Investigators: Well, this has been a wonderful week! We were able to teach all of our other investigators! Two of them called us deceivers! K is doing good! We set a new baptismal date with him! He is such an incredible person. D and M and their daughters A and E are so awesome! I just love all of the people we are meeting with. 

Other People we are working with: We are working with so many Returning Members! That is awesome! Some of them have dates set for them to receive their next saving ordinance! A cool story about a RM of ours. We met with C this last week and set a date for him to receive the priesthood. He was so hesitant and told us that he did not trust himself. We continued to encourage him and then we ended our lesson with him committed to his date. After we left our WML, who was at the lesson, talked with him. He told him that everyone in the ward is supporting him and that he can do it. The next day after Sacrament meeting he came up to us SOOO HAPPY and told us that he felt really good about his date. He told us that he had started to do things a little differently. :) We are so excited for him to receive the priesthood, because after that he can go to the temple for baptisms for the dead and then he will work his way up to his endowment and sealing to his family. The Gospel is a beautiful thing. 

Families sealed in the temple is what missionary work is about. Baptism is just a step towards that ultimate Earthly Goal of the Sealing. Families sealed for eternity to each other opens the gate for us to live in glory and never ending happiness with our Father in Heaven. The Gospel is real. I know that God lives. I know that he loves you. I know that Joseph Smith saw him and our savior in the sacred grove. I know The Book of Mormon is the word of God. I know that Thomas S. Monson is our prophet today and that he receives revelation from our Father. I know that each of us can receive revelation from our Father. 

Something that I found very interesting this morning while I was studying about prayer was the attitude of prayer. I know that there are mornings when I wake up and I just roll onto my stomach and sorta kind of kneel. Then in my prayer I don't really remember anything because I am still waking up. THIS IS NOT THE WAY IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE! Jesus Christ  is the perfect example of how we should offer our prayer. A time when his attitude of prayer is recorded in the Bible is while he is in the Garden of Gethsemane. (Luke 22:41) Jesus Christ was perfect and when he was suffering for our sins he knelt down and prayed to the Father. So likewise, when we are struggling whether it is overcoming sin, temptation, heart ache, or any struggle we may face. We need to kneel down and offer a prayer to our Father. In Joseph Smith-History 1:15 After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down... When we need knowledge we need to kneel and pray. Enos is also an amazing example, And my soul hungered, and I kneeled down before my maker.` All of these people I shared had amazing experience with prayer. Jesus took upon himself the sins of the world, Joseph saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, Enos`sins were forgiven him. The attitude we have in our prayers shows our Heavenly Father that we love him. And that we have faith that he can do all things. I pray that each of us will become more mindful of the attitude of our prayers. 

I love you!
-- 

Sister Chelson