Tuesday, January 29, 2013

28 January 2013


my talk went pretty well, i mostly just elaborated on a few "how to begin teaching" points from preach my gospel & used the examples of nephi/laman&lemuel, alma the younger, & the sons of mosiah :) uhhh what jacob blew a tire??!? glad everyone was safe!! haha crazy, what happened??? br y  has a baptismal date for feb 16th but he still hasn't made it out to church... sick, then didn't have anything to wear, then sick again. :/ bummer dude. we're going out to see him on tuesday and see how things are going! but the "good news" i guess is because of his illness he can't drink hot drinks! haha so that makes quitting coffee easy? ;) elder bedar -- so so so so good!!!! i used some stuff from his talk as well :) ahhhhhh. so good. i just remember being BLOWN AWAY by that talk hahaha. go panthers!! crush 'em ;) wow, go lauren! and trevor!! hooray for missionaries!! we've got like 25 new missionaries this month and more are coming!!! Aaaaaahh!!!!!! and TRANSFERS are on feb 20th!!! i'm so nervous hahaha aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh. i love that you feel like we get to have a chat once a week! i feel that way too :) :) the fun bus is so crazy haha, it's just like a 12-seater van that we use to go to zone stuff so that we don't all drive our cars and use up our miles. i'll send you a picture of ammon with a sombrero haha. zone conference was milwaukee north & milwaukee south zones. there's also green bay zone, appleton zone, and madison zone :) i'm in milwaukee south. i'll send you the picture we took of the zone! see if you can spy me ;) haha not too hard (i hope! ;)) and i'll send you a picture from his baptism!!! so great hahaha, none of the jumpsuits fit him except for a (literally) XXXXXL one! so he looks kind of gangster hahahaha. we asked him how he was feeling before the baptism and he goes "i feeeeeeel goood!" (james brown style) hahahaha. he says, "i may be old, but i'm still funky!" hahahahahhaha.

i love that the Elder's Quorum is going out and getting people! we have such a great ward :) :) & way to go nathan, going out with the missionaries! yeah we get to go to the temple if we can get a member to take us and it's not more than 2 hours away and not more than once every 6 months. so sister casdorph and i are gonna try to go in february! cause i just can't get enough!! haha aaahhh. http://www.lds.org/broadcasts/archive/ces-devotionals/2013/01?lang=eng ta-da! CES devotionals. DEFINITELY read president uchtdorf's and tell me what you think!!!! i wish i could print it all out haha. speaking of which, i didn't get a paper letter last week... which is okay, just fyi. maybe it's delayed. :) i don't know where to find the mtc devotionals but definitely worth the hunt if you can find them!!!! so so so so SO good!! i LOVED the MTC, it's like missionary summer camp!! with apostles!! haha just SUCH a great place, i'm so excited for nathan and jacob and joseph and maryanne and julia to all go there :) :) yeah Sister H is great! and something that was cool - we invited her to read Mosiah 18 as her "homework" one night, and when we came back to talk about it she said different verses had stood out and we talked about why, and one that was interesting to me was she said that verse 28 stood out because it talked about "imparting of your substance of your own free will" and she took that to mean quitting her addictions of her own free will! like her substance abuse. which i thought was so interesting. that's not the "right" way to interpret that verse, but it was the right way for her! and the Spirit spoke to her and let her know what she needs to do :) haha YEAH the paper towel totally froze in my hand!! so so so so cold haha but it's warmer today. might even be above freezing out there haha ;) wow so exciting for the everett mission too!! i was thinking - all these new missionaries means a ton of new AREAS! so nathan & i will probably get to open new areas as part of our missions - which kind of scares me!! hahaha but it's part of the Lord hastening His work. so it's exciting! and scary! haha :) speaking of everett washington, can you ask the missionaries what their standards of excellence are, if they have them? i'm really curious :) :) i want to see Snohomish from a missionary pov! haha :)

the baptism went excellent, sister casdorph said it was the most spiritual baptism of her whole mission and elder kanahele said the interview was the most spiritual he'd ever had. so that was crazy haha. it was really really awesome :) oh thanks for the reminder! yes member lessons have been great, we've been trying to do some role-play with members, helping them to practice just like we practice every morning. and we taught a great family, the d's, the plan of salvation using pillows haha. they have 3 little****, i think 9 6 and 2? something like that. so we set out pillows and i stood with the 3 **** on each one and we talked about pre-earth life and who we lived with, earth life & why we're here, the spirit world, then the celestial kingdom! "think of the happiest you've ever been" "my baptism!" says b, the 9 year old :) ***s really bright, knew all the answers, so great :) then we took away all the pillows except for "earth life" and talked about how so many people don't have all the 'pillows'! they don't know anything except earth life. so how can we help them know the whole picture? "give them a Book of Mormon!" says B. so we gave  a copy & let  practice giving it to someone. "This is a Book of Mormon. I would like you to have it." & it really is that simple!! & then  dad asked her to pick a favourite verse so  could make it more personal, which i thought was a great idea. *** likes 2 nephi 2:25 :) anyways that was really fun. :)

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wow wait WHAT julia went to new beginnings??!?!?!?!?!? WHAT THE WHAT THE WHAT. our new beginnings is this wednesday, the whole ward is invited so we're trying to get sister h a ride! :) so cool. & Sister D came to church yesterday!! even though S was sick so she had the perfect excuse not to come!! she really wanted to be there and so she made it happen. :) :) & church was ALL about families, so she asked us "what's family home evening?" so we're having home evening with her family tonight! hooray! :) :) so so fun.

 haha i love bro night! fun, was the Hobbit good?  that is nice of BYU friends to pick him up. so hard to say goodbye!! but it's good. it's where we need to be. NATHAN - be sure to write in your journal how you know this is where you need to be & when. satan likes to make you doubt that! don't you let him :)

i'm glad the kringle was good!!! i was really really worried about it hahaha. & feel free to look through those things if you want, they don't do me any good in storage haha so you can just have them :) i'm glad you liked the kringle! packages are just really fun i think :) a little piece of wisconsin in your home! sent with tons and tons of love!! hey cool that nathan got to talk to j about that stuff. missions are awesome and they are unique! for a reason i think :) Br R - so funny haha - the more he learns about missionaries the more he's like, "Wow. Double wow!" like that we pay our own way and we don't go to school for this stuff haha. it's fun :) yeah yeah sealings!! that seriously has had probably the GREATEST impact on me, of everything that we did in the temple. probably the greatest was proxy sealings to you & dad. that's why i'm out here!! & i'm SO SO SO SO grateful that our family is together forever! what love Heavenly Father has for us! ps -- watch the new mormon message "earthly father, heavenly father" -- so so good :) & hooray for a baptism! so nice of you all to fast for us, it means a lot :) you are the best best best! the scriptures are wonderful! preach my gospel is the greatest! aaaaah what love our Heavenly Father has for us :) :) :) i do love being a missionary, and Elder Holland is great :) hooray for Apostles!! you're right mom -- why would we want to go back?? Go forwards and not backwards. Courage, brethren, and on! on to the victory!! :) :)

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

- seriously. you have no idea how much these people LOVE the green bay packers. sometimes i play a game called "how many people in this room are wearing packers gear" and when we went to culvers once it was 5. and this wasn't even on a game day! haha. packers & cheese, packers & cheese, i'm a little wisconsinite who loves packers and cheeeeeeseee! ;) ! that's cool you went to a church. i feel the same way when i go to other churchs - it's great but i just feel like stuff is MISSING. i love it and i definitely feel the Spirit, i just wish they had ALL of it, ya know? thank goodness for the Restoration! & what's SO COOL about the Restoration is it's Jesus Christ restoring the Way for ALL of us to have FULL access to His Atonement. Think about it -- during the great apostasy, NO ONE was taking full advantage of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ!!!!! can you imagine???? just think about how incredible that makes the first vision -- AT LAST Jesus Christ was able to restore the FULLNESS of His Gospel so that we could take FULL advantage of His Atonement!!!! it's all about getting closer to Him :) aaaah so good. :) :)

i LOVE the new youth curriculum and i'm glad you do too!! i'm kinda jealous haha!! it's so so awesome. definitely, God promises us over & over that if we open our mouths they will be filled! we just gotta use our AGENCY and show FAITH so that He can bless us! :) :) you can do it!!

 also i LOVE that scene from Lion King!! what a great insight!! love love love it. also this http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=2119328537001 mormon message is super super great, methinks :) hahaha you're just going crazy with the Lion King analogy!! i love it!! ps -- i had to stop myself from being like "THIS IS JUST LIKE LOTR" one time when we were reading the Book of Mormon with a less-active sister :) (alma 46)

also, definitely yes God can reach us ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE :) hooray, infinite Atonement!!! :) :) love it.

anyways i love you! i'm glad you like my letters haha. YOU da best! love love -- xoxoxox

nathan - how did your talk go? send me your notes! :)

 i loved the hymns too!! even though i had to conduct and i can't sing very high!! hahaha but aren't they SO so great?? what a happy day of joy and gladness :) :) also one time sister casdorph and i decided to sing our hymn of the day as low as we could ("love at home") and we barely made it through we were laughing so hard hahaha. so basically, that's the fun life of a missionary hahah ;) i am loving Wisconsin! and here's the next letter you wanted haha ;) ps i'm glad you're excited for the raspberry kringle! i hope you like it! we had pecan kringle and apple kringle for Christmas (they're HUGE here... like super huge. what?? i'd never even heard of them!! haha) but i didn't think you'd like those kinds. and at the baptism we had cinnamon roll kringle! but i didn't even know that kind existed when i went to the bakery haha. anyways i hope you enjoy it!! let me know! and just lie if you don't! haha just kidding ;) if i could send you all some frozen custard i would!! YUM YUM YUM YUM YUM. :) :) ps -- if you ever get to go to culvers (i think there's one in utah??) GO and get a kids meal and then send me your scoopie token. i'm collecting them to win a free scoop of custard ;) haha well anyways. i love you! :)

 yeah it is pretty cold here haha. below 0 is funny, you go outside and you're like psshh it's not that cold, i'm fine..... then about 20 seconds later everything is numb and you have a brain freeze just from breathing in the air hahahaha. but it's warm now! well like 20 degrees ;) haha. it goes back and forth, below 0 and then above, which gets pretty crazy. that sounds super cool about the trees dripping! wow :) i'm glad you liked the kringle!!! i'm glad it made it to you safely hahaha. i'll send you another one when i can even though it costs like $20 to ship stuff haha it's worth it ;) haha i know my letters are sooooooOOOOOOOO long!! i can't help it!! oh well haha. i love love love you!!!!!!! you the bestest :) :) xoxoxoxoxo

 

oh whoops i forgot to say MY stuff! haha whoopsie. well i already said a lot of it in the replies but here's my Book of Mormon sharing contribution!

1 Ne 15:14 - so basically for a while now i've been kind of frustrated with the phrase "come unto Christ," like we all know we're supposed to do it but HOW??? it's not like i can just get on a plane to albuqurque and "come unto Him" in that way! if i could, i would. but that's not the way. so what IS the way we "Come unto Christ?" WELL shocker shocker, it's in the Book of Mormon. live the gospel!!!! & what is the gospel??? faith. repentance. baptism. recieveing the gift of the Holy Ghost. enduring to the end!!! ahh so so good. so basically the point of the Book of Mormon is so that people everywhere can "know and dcome... to the eknowledge of the gospel of their Redeemer... and the very points of his doctrine, that they may know how to come unto him and be saved." !!!!!!!! so basically, everyone should read the Book of Mormon. amen, the end. :) :)

1 Ne 13:36 / 3 Ne 11:39 / Hel 5:21 -- How do we build upon the Rock?

What is the gospel? (PMG ch 1!)

PMG page 2. last paragraph. uh, WHAT? so so so so good!!!!! how did i never see this before. what the what the what. read it. love it. live it. also, the first sentence on page 6. seriously, how has preach my gospel been around for like 8 years and i'm JUST NOW seeing all this great stuff????? what what WHAT have i been doing with my life!! :) :)

THE RESTORATION OF THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST. basically, what happened is this. Jesus Christ came and taught His perfect Gospel & performed His perfect Atonement. [the gospel = the doctrine of Christ = the way we access the Atonement.] then, we lost it. priesthood athority, lost. true doctrines & principles? warped. & without authority, ordinances & covenants? gone. :( :( so during this great apostasy, NO ONE was taking full advantage of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. no one. !!!!!!!!!! what the!!!!! can you even imagine how Jesus Christ felt? people still knew truths, and they still wanted to live His Gospel, but the fullness was NOT upon the earth!! (amos 8:11-12) what darkness :( this went on for 1800 years!! enter joseph smith. a 14 year old boy with a question, and faith, and a prayer. in a little grove of trees in upstate New York. through him, Jesus Chirst restored the FULLNESS of His Gospel so that we could have FULL access to His Atonement!! He wants us to be even closer to Him ("just a closer walk with Thee"). He wants us to use His Atonement every single day. don't let Christ's sacrifice go to waste! use the Atonement every day. exercise faith. repent (change). make & keep sacred covenants. live worthy of the Holy Ghost. Come to know Him more through studying His sacred Word :) :) how. seriously. awesome. :) :) :) :) :) it's hard to explain over email haha but you can just imagine that with lots of hand gestures & yelling ;) that's how i do missionary work! hahaha.

also, i dare you to spend ONE day driving exactly the speed limit. i dare you. and then tell me what gospel lessons we can learn from that haha. seriously. do it and then tell me :)

ps i think i do want one of those little PMGs, if you can send one to me? :) also..... music. GOOD music haha. is there a way for you to send me my efy cd or something? we listen to cds in the car and ipods in the apartment. we only have 1 good cd, and it is pretty good ("nearer," from shadow mountain) but it's the only one we have hahaha. HEY one of the Zone Leaders just handed me the efy 2013 cd!! awesome!! :) :)

funnies:

sister casdorph introducing me as her new "partner" hahahahaha

someone at the thrift stop saying (loudly): "i don't say it "potpourri," i say "POT UH PURRY"!" hahahah ohhh wisconsinites.... :)

ANYWAYS. i love you all so much!!!!!!!!!!! big huggggg, little kiiiiiiiisss :) :)

xoxoxoxoxoxox

sister cece :) :)

xox

also i did the math and there are about as many days in my mission as there are pages in the Book of Mormon. i'm in the "2nd nephi 9" of my mission ;)

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