17 Dec 2012

another week here in Racine! & it has been a crazy one haha. i forgot to say a lot of things last time haha i always get so excited and then i forget what i was going to say so i tried to be a little more organized & take notes this week. we'll see how it goes :)

mom - thank you for the skirt! i love it & i wear it :) haha i loved the package from you!! I got your "sunday letter" on friday dec 14 so that's about how long it takes i guess :) i loved getting that too! for Christmas this year I just want letters haha :) also tell Sister Volkert thank you for the card and that it was an answer to prayer!! i prayed that i would get a letter haha and the next day I got her card! so she sent it even before I prayed for it..... hmm God's timing is so great! :)

so - to answer your letter!

it's actually not that cold! today it's actually pretty nice haha. yesterday was pretty nippy but i'm good with my coat, a few layers of leggings, & my gloves. all the locals say it's crazy mild this year so we'll just call that a tender mercy haha. the people here L O V E the packers, they decorate their houses like it's Christmas and they have the flags and everyone wears packer stuff all the time. also - pop quiz! - what does the "G" stand for on the green bay packer logo? not "green" haha - "Greatness." so now you know :) also, everyone here says "green BEY" not "GREEN bay" like i would. and, i heard someone say "see yah later eh" just like the canadian moose from brother bear, so that made my day. also, some of my clothes smell like cigarettes haha.

Jacob - definitely pray about when to serve a mission! God's timing is so great, and life is so great when we're following His timing :) didn't President Eyring give a talk about that kind of last conference? maybe look it up and let me know haha. also, this is only semi-related but President Eyring's mormon message "choose ye this day" is really great :) i loved that you sent me that part about Ammon & King Lamoni's joy :)

yeah when DID joseph turn 16??!? what the heck. haha so great. the ward here has exactly 9 youth, i know this because they did a musical number yesterday and i counted. crazy huh? like i said, the church feels SO young here, very few "born-and-raised" members. also, no one really knows who/what we are.... i feel like in Snohomish, people at least recognize the mormon missionaries as such. here, people have NO idea. we were volunteering on wednesday at a lutheran thrift shop (like DI) and another volunteer (except he gets paid by his school to volunteer?) was asking us the FUNNIEST questions haha he could not understand why we were actually volunteering for free... "don't you guys like shopping??!" hahaha. he also was like "yeah i would go to church except i do the weed" and we didn't really know what to say..... haha. it was funny.

Which mission is Lindsay going to?? there were sisters in my MTC branch going to tampa and they were WONDERFUL. i'm so excited for her!!! she'll be great :) :) love her.

I loved that you said "the Son of Man is come to save that which [is] lost" because I feel like as a missionary especially but really everyone who has been baptized and taken upon them the name of Christ is called to do just that! Luke 4:18 is a great definition of my (our) calling as well :)

also i love the sacrament because it means that every day can be Christmas! when we "always remember Him" :) how BLESSED we are to be members of His Church & to know Him & love Him & draw closer to Him each day :) :) love love love it.

Mom I love your December filled with service! I just love you so much - you're such a great example to me & I've really been grateful lately for our family and how we've been raised because so few people get that. It's a miracle to be a part of this family :) and to have two parents who love the Gospel and each other and us, and to have been raised in such a gospel-centered home... really a miracle and such a blessing. :) anyways i just love all of you and love being part of your family!! and i love the service-centered december, and i know Christmas is so much more meaningful as we make it about loving Him & serving Him :) which reminds me - mormon.org/christmas! such a great resource, i hope you're using it! "This Christmas season will have greater meaning as we seek to follow His example and live His teachings." :) it's awesome to be able to teach the Christmas message to so many this season :) also - Book of Mormon Christmas! I read 1 Ne 11, Mosiah 3, Alma 7, Helaman 14, and 3 Ne 1. i read the whole chapters haha cause how can you go wrong with that ;) give them a look! the first three are actually my favourite :)

also mom I LOVE that verse in moroni 9:31; Sister Casdorph and I talked a lot this week about our weaknesses haha. and I loved "every person eventually is backed up to the wall of faith, and there he must make his stand. don't be surprised when it happens to you!" so true. and we can be refined and strengthened!! and it's also true that we cannot fall when our rock is Jesus Christ! because He always wins!

I LOVED looking at Helaman 5:10-12; we had Zone Training on tuesday and we looked at those verses and it changed my life. so good. Look in Helaman 5:10-11 how it says that we are not saved IN our sins, but FROM our sins. i never really got that before but on tuesday it hit me - WHAT A BLESSING. seriously, who wants to be saved IN their sins? whooooooo even wants to be an immortal sinner? that would be the worst! that's what Satan is! nooooooooo thank you!!! Jesus Christ's Atonement is so great, His power is so infinite that He can save us FROM our sins! WE CAN BE FREED FROM SIN. w h a t a miracle that is. we aren't saved IN our sins, but FROM them. WE CAN BE CLEANSED FROM SIN. we can be TRANSFORMED through the atoning blood and grace of Christ. what a MIRACLE that is, and how grateful I am for Jesus Christ and His life and Atonement. oh my word. so good. thank you thank you so much Jesus. and He has POWER to redeem us from our sins because of REPENTANCE. here's something i'm doing - every time i see the doctrine of Christ in the book of mormon - that's faith repentance baptism holy ghost enduring to the end aka THE GOSPEL aka HOW TO ACCESS THE ATONEMENT - i box it in red. it's amazing how much it shows up and how much i never saw it before haha. but anyways, through repentance we can be saved from our sins - THEREFORE he hath sent his angels aka MISSIONARIES aka ALL OF YOU to declare the tidings of the conditions of repentance, which bringeth unto the POWER of the Redeemer, unto the salvation of their souls. How great the importance to make these things known unto the children of men! (2 ne 2:8). what glad tidings of great joy! (mosiah 3:3, also luke 2) ahh so good :) what a blessing to be His angel. read moroni 7:25-39 and replace "angels" with "missionaries"... and we know that we are all missionaries :) replace "angels" with your name! :)

and then back to helaman 5:12 - guess who shall have NO power? satan. what a loser. haha. Jesus = INFINITE POWER. satan = no power, IF we build our lives on the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Lord Omnipotent. (omnipotent means "all powerful") :) haHA! we win :) :) which reminds me of Elder Holland's talk where he got in our faces and singed our eyebrows a bit - "the way a good coach does when the game is close and VICTORY MEANS EVERYTHING." viiiiiiiictoryyyyyy, viiiiiiiictoryyyyyyyy through Hiiiim that Redeemeth! viccccctoryyyyyyyy vicccctoryyyyyyy through Jesus Christ our Lord! vistory! vistory! victory! through Jesus Christ, our Lord :) :) hallelujah!

which reminds me, since my (our) purpose is to "invite others to come unto Christ" I pretty much just walk around singing "comeeeee to Jeesusssss! flyyyyyy to Jesussss!" and it reminds me of my efy friends haha. they should write me! hint hint :)

Julia i love that you got to be Mary, hooray :)

I am liking Wisconsin! I think it's so so so so beautiful and hopefully i can send you pictures soon! also - if you send me an SD card with pictures on it i can put it in my camera and look at them all any time i want :) so that's a cool idea sister casdorph gave me.... that would be a great present ;) haha

Maryanne I love that scripture!! i read it to Sister Casdorph and she loves it too :) thank you so much!!

we had an interesting discussion last night, sister casdorph and I, about what it means to have "success." actually i'll just tell you everything that happened last night cause it's great :)

so I was praying and saying what the man in Mark 9:24 says "Lord, I believe! help thou mine unbelief" because that is just my mantra right now... seriously. and so i decided to look up that story and see what happens/ what Jesus does after that, and then I would do it. :) (side note - so grateful i got to study and teach Mark for seminary!) so I was flipping through mark trying to find it and i saw a note i'd written in the margin next to mark 15:33 about how the people who saw Jesus on the cross didn't even get what His mission was, and I commented to Sister Casdorph how that has to have been one of the worst parts of the crucifixion, hearing people say things like "oh yeah isn't he the guy who was going to tear down the temple and rebuild it in three days?" and feeling like you'd failed because they hadn't even gotten what you were there for! they didn't even realize. ack. and i was talking about how isn't satan the worst because he's always doing that! it's always IF thou be the Son of God, do this or do that. it happened on the cross and it happens in matthew 4. there's really only the one temptation - IF thou be the Son of God. doubt yourself, doubt your mission, and PROVE it. show me a miracle to prove to yourself that you really are the Son of God. that sneaky little devil. so I just said that kind of off-handedly as i was flipping through the Bible and Sister Casdorph said something like "i think i really needed to hear that right now, thanks" so that was cool.

side note - sorry - but one of my favourite things about being a missionary is that my purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ, and I can ALWAYS do that! even if no one will listen or let us in or anything, there's always at least one person I can serve and invite to come unto Christ - my companion! and i can write home and encourage you all to come unto Christ, and have faith and repent and be baptized/keep your covenants and live worthy of the Holy Ghost :) so i can ALWAYS be a successful missionary, regardless of other people's choices :) hooray, missionary work! anyways, back to the story.

so I found the verse I was looking for - Lord I believe; help thou mine unbelief - in Mark 9:24. and i read what happens next and i landed on verse 29 - "and He said unto them, this kind can come forth my nothing, but by prayer and fasting." and i was like - fasting! no! i'm always so hungry! that can't be the answer.... and then i was like satan! you sneaky little devil! you're trying to get me to not do what Jesus asked! you're lame. so I quick told Sister Casdorph that I was going to fast tomorrow (today) so that I would be accountable, and she said she would fast too. so TAKE THAT Satan. haha. I know that was my answer! so that's cool. God answers prayers, amen :) and the scriptures are GREAT.

Ether 12:27 is still the verse of my life haha that whole chapter is so great. also moroni 7, and 8, and 9, and 10... what's cool about the last 10 chapters of moroni (that's the whole book...) is that they especially were written JUST FOR US, and we almost didn't have them. Moroni ALMOST didn't write them! he's just wandering around alone running from the lamanites and waiting to die, but then he gets the impression to write more. and WHAT IF HE HADN'T. what if he hadn't listened to that prompting and he'd just finished up after ether!! we wouldn't have moroni 7, or "moroni's promise," or the sacrament prayers in the book of mormon, or any of that stuff! so you should read those chapters some time :) haha you should just always read the Book of Mormon always, and read it to receive revelation! go in with a question, and watch God work His miracles and answer you as you turn to His word :) so great!!

so that's me answering your letter.... haha :)

other cool things i learned...

commandments are a blessing, because they allow us to be obedient so that God can bless us! so more commandments - like the missionary handbook - are a great opportunity to be MORE obedient and get MORE blessings! Alma 29:9 - study that one. SO GOOD. ah so good. I learned at Zone Training that we can't ask other people to be obedient to things like the Law of Chastity (i'm looking at you, investigators who shall not be named...) if WE'RE not living in exact obedience too. and one of the rules i need to obey is to exercise in the morning. we have exercise time from 6:30am-7:30am and for a while there I was mostly doing "yoga" and by yoga i mean "relaxation pose" and by that i mean sleeping on the carpet in the basement. haha. so i decided that i need to be more obedient, and so now every morning i throw the weights around and do the stretches and stuff they gave us in the MTC. so now i'm SUPER SORE haha but I tell myself i'm doing lunges for Jesus! and that makes it better.

just in case anyone was wondering - there is NO WAY i would be doing lunges in a basement in racine wisconsin at 6:30 in the morning if I did not love Jesus. the Church is true! let my early morning lunges be a witness of that haha owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. ;)

also! GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS and He reaches out in so much love to us every single day. even though our days here are really hard sometimes haha and we don't have much "success" numbers-wise and we write a lot of 0's... (like poor elder whatever his name is from wyoming in "the best two years" haha) God still reaches out in love to us and He answers our prayers, usually through other people :) LIKE SISTER SUE JOHNSON. let me tell you that story. but first of all, I AM SO GRATEFUL for your prayers, I can honestly feel them and I need them so much, and last thursday especially I just felt Mom's prayers and Dad's and all of you and the grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles and friends and everyone, I just knew that you were praying for me and it meant SO MUCH and God answered those prayers and this is how :)

Sister Johnson is a ward missionary and she is great. she is so willing to help us in anyway and we just love her. So on Thursday we asked if she could drive us around to a few places that are maybe a little sktechy so we need a member, or kind of far and we don't have many miles on our car, things like that. and of course she said yes cause she's wonderful. so she drove us ALL the way out to the far reaches of Racine and didn't even mind. even though no one was home haha. she was so cheerful and she's also the seminary teacher so she was talking about that and those kids are so lucky to have her, she cares so much and is just so great. so that was fun, and then after a couple of hours with no real "success" she invited us over for dinner and gave us the most d e l i c i o u s creamy chicken noodle soup and little cheese sticks and jello and she set the table so nicely and it was just SO NICE of her, it meant the world to me and it was such an answer to prayer. and the people here are funny when you thank them haha they're very much "oh don't mention it" "no SERIOUSLY don't mention it" haha so that's fun :) AND THEN she brought out peppermint ice cream which is my FAVORITE and it had a little <3 sugar cookie in it in a fancy bowl and it just made my whole life, i loved it. treat the missionaries well when they come over haha it's a special treat, at least here :)

we've eaten meals in some weird places haha the other day we went to a house with no table so we ate sitting on the couch and drank (water) out of Budwiser cups hahaha. it really is a foreign experience, even just here in Wisconsin! the culture is so different from back home, and the ward is really different. more tattoos & piercings in sacrament meeting than at home haha, and a lot of the people are new members or are just coming back to church, things like that so it's very... i guess accepting and when we brought A**** & J**** (oh - A***** AND J***** CAME TO CHURCH! and they brought s***** the 5 yr old) :) they didn't stand out much. not as many skirts/dresses/suits here. so that's different (not in a bad way) and the people are much more open, like in relief society they'll just tell you they messed up so they can't go to the temple, or that this is the longest streak of church attendance they've ever had, etc. also there are several single parents, part-member families, partially-active families etc. Also - and this is sad - active members are the minority here. :( but we're working to change that! :)

also it's not weird having a companion go everywhere with me, but it is weird not to be independant anymore. now everything i do has to be a WE thing... if that makes sense. i don't do hardly anything by myself anymore, which is taking some getting used to haha since i'm so independant? but Sister Casdorph is great and I love her and I'm so grateful for her patience with me haha :)

anyways, this is officially the world's longest letter haha. things here are good! keep the prayers coming, i need them and love them :) and i love you! so much! we pray about once every hour haha every time we leave the house or the car or begin or end anything... it's great. never repetitve because we're honestly just BEGGING for help and giving so much praise back :)

and thanks to everyone who's sent me letters!!!!!!! i love them so much :) :) and merry christmas!! i'll write again next monday and we'll set up a skype time!! :) be good to the missionaries in our ward :) invite a family over for dinner and then invite the missionaries too! let them give a Christmas message of Christ and then y'all can sing Christmas hymns :) i miss singing with y'all!! we sing every day here, just me and Sister Casdorph :)

also check out the CD "nearer" from shadow mountain... we listen to it in the car and it's good. my kind of music, but hymns :)

and we have a tiwi who yells at us when we speed haha. whenever we drive with members it's terrifying cause they actually drive over the speed limit haha. and yes, i do have to get out and back sister casdorph every time we go in reverse haha.

okay this letter is officially WAY to long but i love you all so much!!! merry merry merry Christmas!!! i'll write a better Christmas letter next time haha it doesn't feel much like Christmas here yet - no snow!! or christmas music! or family! but lots and lots of Jesus so that's good :) write me often & soon!!! i love to hear about your days :) mom feel free to edit out all the boring stuff haha whoopsie.

i love you all!!!!

xoxoxoxoxx

Jesus lives & He is the Son of God :) hallelujah! He is our Saviour :)



SISTER PROFFIT

oh i forgot - sister casdorph taught me later that we don't have to "prove" that we're good missionaries through our numbers. no "IF thou be a good missionary, do xxx in racine." nope! we've gotta stay humble. it is NOT ABOUT US! nothing is on a mission. get the character of Christ! :) miracles WILL happen here, but not by our own efforts. only through Christ! :)

hopefully that makes sense haha

love!

also we can't tract during packer games HAHAHA

xxxox

ALSO I HAD A DANISH KRINGLE AND IT WAS THE YUMMIEST THING EVER. peppermint & chocolate. also a delicious bagel that changed my life with cheese on it. (the cheese here is good)

also i met a 180lb dog who didn't eat me, yay!

and God protected us in the ghetto when we went to visit someone there. i was scared so we prayed. and we were protected haha yay for that :) and yay for our house! and for snohomish! and for all the blessings we have! and for Dad and his job! we really are SO abundantly blessed :)

okay now i'm done for reals haha love you xoxoxoxox

cece :)