Gunnison 13

Gunnison for Christmas

Well I am staying in Gunnison for the next 6 weeks.  It will be an adventure and we will have to see how cold it gets.  

On Monday we met with a less-active named Monique. She is super great and is 19.  Her sister went on a mission so that is exciting.  She hasn't been to church in about a year and said she wants to start coming again. At the end of our lesson she said you know I was planning on not showing up tonight but I am glad I did.  

Shay is doing great. The Seelbinders had her over for our lesson and then they also had her over for Thanksgiving.  They are great fellowshipers.  Shay and Mark have very similar pasts and both struggle with anxiety and depression. Mark's testimony has really helped Shay realize how important the gospel is and that it can help. 

Our landlord's family had us over for Thanksgiving.  They are super great. 

The new church Christmas video came out. It is amazing everyone should watch it.  It is about 2 minutes and you can find it by just going on mormon.org 

I also sprained my ankle this week so that was exciting.  

I hope you all have a great week. 

 

[Part of Ana's letter to me because I asked her some related questions and thought maybe this could be inspirational to some:]

 In church on Sunday two sibling gave talks on being grateful in times of trial.  [one] said he was going to go a little different way and talk about a life experience.  He went on to say that on his mission he was assigned to go to Brazil.  When he was in the MTC he thought he got over his homesickness and all the emotions of a mission. He then went on to talk about how it was apparent that his Visa was not coming so he got reassigned to the Las Angeles mission to wait for his Visa.  While he was there he realized that he was not happy and not enjoying himself and he realized something was wrong about 5 months into his mission.  He ended up being diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety that meant the they were going to permanently reassign him to the Las Angeles mission.  He said that in all of that and with the help of a loving mission president, patient companions, and kind members and less-actives he was able to serve a full 2 year mission and it was an amazing experience. He never thought he would be able to finish.  He said when it was happening he felt abandoned but he knows now that he was never alone and the it is only because Heavenly Father loves him that he was able to do it. It was a super powerful story. 

There are a lot of missionaries that struggle with depression and anxiety and people are willing to work with it.  If [anyone] wants to serve a mission it is possible.  

[And this little "oh yeah, by the way" because I asked how her hike last week went cracked me up and I thought other moms might appreciate it:]

I sprained my ankle while hiking.  Other then that it was pretty good though.  If you get a notification about someone using your insurance that is why. 

I love you

Gunnison 12

Donny Osmond Really Knows How to Get Down to Business

He came in with the force of a great typhoon.

Well I think that was the highlight of my my week. Skyping with Donny; it was a blast. He really has a testimony like a coursing river.   He has a pretty good Minnesotan accent.  He was so happy he was able to join us for a lesson and he was very grateful we thought to Skype.  He has a son on a mission in Italy so he was happy that he can tell him about his missionary experience.  He talked about how it is a miracle that his son was even able to go on a mission because he had struggled with anxiety for a long time.  He talked about how the gospel had helped his son.  Then he also shared about how he gained his testimony of the book of Mormon.  It was super cool and the Spirit was so strong.  Shay ended up praying about a day to be baptized and Donny said he would come.  He ended up having to hang up because he was supposed to be on stage soon and his manager kept coming and telling him he needed to start getting ready.  It was a great lesson and probably one of the best ones I have had with Shay.  

The other member that we brought to the lesson (Sister Seelbinder), has started to fellowship her. She offered to pick up Shay for church and invited her to dinner. We are going to have a lesson in her home tomorrow. Sister Seelbinder thought it would be a good idea to have her over and to have her and Mark talk because it sounds like they have very similar pasts. I was going to send a picture of the lesson, but for some reason the member that took the photo says it won't send to my email so that is weird.  

I also got crazy sick the night before the lesson.  I had a fever of about 103 it was crazy.  I am doing okay now.  

I hope you all have a great week.

Gunnison 11

 We Made it On Time to Seminary

We were actually the first ones there, we were so proud of ourselves. We went to Seminary to give everyone in the class a Book of Mormon.  A week ago the class had a discussion about handing out copies of the Book of Mormon to their friends and not many of them had done it. We had dinner with the teacher last night and we talked about sharing the Book of Mormon with our friends and talking about it and she told us about the conversation with the class.  This morning we went to invite the class to write down their testimony of Jesus Christ in the front then pray about who they could give it to.  I figured I would just share a little bit of mine, since I committed all the seminary kids to share it with their friends I should probably do the same.  

I know that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ.  Through reading it I have come to know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and that he really did come to the earth and suffer and die for each of us.  I have felt Heavenly Father and Jesus's love for me.  I know that they know exactly what I feel and know how to help me.  I have learned that because of Christ I can feel happy even in trials.  I know that Heavenly Father loves all of his children all around the world.  

This week we went on exchanges I was with Sister Pond for a day.  She got to teach a Spanish lesson with me to Ruben.  We read a little bit of the Book of Mormon with him.  We talked about how sometimes God asks us to do hard things but if we have faith then we can do what he asks.  

Tuesday we had a lesson with Shay.  We talked about prayer and how if we pray then the Spirit can witness to us of the truth.  Also how we can ask for peace and comfort.  She turned to the Book of Mormon this week when she was having a bad day. She opened it to a random page and it was exactly what she needed.  She read Ether 15.  I had never before thought of that chapter as a comforting one.  It helped her realize that sometimes we do have to sleep on our swords in a sense because we need to always watch out. We also need to keep fighting until the end no matter what.  It was a new perspective. 

We got to help Claressa with service this week.  She is doing a craft fair. We helped her to make bird feeders and pine cones for starters. After we did service she let us share a message and we set up an appointment to go back, so we are now teaching Claressa again.

We taught Jared again this week. We taught him the restoration of the gospel.  We asked him to read the Book of Mormon so we will see if he does that.  

We saw the Heckers this week. We talked about Sabbath day observance. They also fed us dinner and brother Hecker taught us how to make a stew out of all food storage things.  That was exciting; he is supposed to get me the recipe.  

We also did service at the High School play. They did Willy Wonka.  We helped hand out tickets and concessions.  We got to talk to some of the cast so that was fun.  

I hope you all have a great week.

[a little extra from her letter reply to her dad:  In Gunnison we have zero snow right now.  On the mountain is Crested Butte, they have some.  I do like the snow I am excited for it.  I think the most exciting lesson we taught this week was that we were talking about the word of God and how we need to read it.  On the TV that was going that was not going to be turned off it started talking about the Book of Mormon so that was fun.]

Gunnison 10

100 Days More

JK Sister Carlson did the math wrong.  I was trying to figure out if I wanted to read the Book of Mormon another time before I get home how many pages I needed to read a day.  I did not want to figure it out though because then I would know how many days I had left and I did not want to know that.  Sister Carlson ended up doing the math for me and was like you have 100 days.  I was like the whole point of you doing this is so that I would not know how many days I have left. Now she wants to make a paper chain.  I agreed that we might be able to make one until February 15th when all the candy goes on sale from Valentines day.  We will see if it ends up happening.  We did find out that she did the math wrong though so that is good.

Last week Brother Richter our Branch Mission leader gave us some names to go try of less-actives.  A lot of them I had tried before but we decided to do it again. We have been able to see miracles. 

We got in contact with this Lady named Donna.  We had tried her last week and she told us that she was not interested.  We went back this week to try her again and she opened her door and was like I know who you are come in.  We went in and shared a scripture with her.  She mentioned that she really missed having the Sisters come over and the church.  

Another is named Doug and he was in the middle of chopping wood when we tried him but we were able to set up another appointment to teach the whole family.

We were also able to get in and see Sister Friedman again which was great.  

Shay is doing great. She didn't come to church again. She did tell us that she made a covenant with God that she would meet with us once a week though.

Jared ended up getting stuck doing a group project so we were not able to meet with him but hopefully this week. His Birthday was on Wednesday so we told him that he missed out because we might have brought him a treat or something. 

We had dinner with the Harveys this week. Which is always fun.  Anders and Alex had to tell me all about how badly the Gunnison High School band lost at state. They are still really bitter about it.  Anders is going to be drum major next year and is super excited about it.  They also all shared their missionary moments from the week with us.  Anders was telling his friend about the Book of Mormon and put one in his back pack so next time it comes up he can give one to her. It is always exciting to hear about the members' missionary moments.  

I hope you all have a fantastic week.  

Gunnison 9

WE ARE GOING TO A LAKE 

Well this week was Mark Seelbinder's birthday.  We decided to 'heart attack"* him.  We pulled it off. Sister Thompson told me that they always get caught.  It was a miracle that the dog did not bark. 

We were able to do a church tour with Shay this week.  She enjoyed it.  She also came to the Halloween party so that was amazing.  She didn't come to church but baby steps.  

We were able to teach Jared Jacobsen again this week. It was awesome.  We taught him about how Heavenly Father loves us and he sent Jesus Christ. We can trust Christ with anything.  It was a super good lesson.  We are hopefully going to go over and teach him again this week.  His best friend goes to USU and he goes there for every Thanksgiving and Christmas break.  

This week was our Branch Trunk or Treat and our land lord helped us decorate our car.  Her daughter Realynn came and helped us with our game at the trunk or treat and dressed as a Sister Missionary it was awesome. We were all going to be old ladies but then we were not aloud to dress up so she decided to come as a Sister Missionary.  

I hope you all have a fantastic week.  

[*"heart attack" is when they cover someone's door in lots of paper hearts]