Pictures from St. George, Utah

                                                       God's country or just "heaven?"

                                                             Moriah in her "element."

                                                                  A Zone "P" day hike.

    Sister Tornar (on the left) is headed back home to Paris, France after serving 18 months in Utah.

 

Dinner with Sister Lunt's family.

(Diana Hatfield Lunt is a high school friend of mine, haven't talked to her or seen her since the 80s

her husband is the ward mission leader. Diana meets my daughter and feeds her, IT IS A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL! :) Thank You Diana for calling me and telling me all about your evening with my daughter! You made my week very happy!! :)

10 days till Sister Larsen is no longer a greenie!‏               Part of an email 10-10-12

Helllllo Family!!!

Dork dot....means you’re a new missionary at MTC and everyone has to say hi to you :)

 Sooo I have had so many things I have wanted to write about for this week but my mind is running 50 miles a minute today. We got to hike Zion again today but an actual hike this time and it was brutal! BUT soooooo cool. It normally takes 6 hours to do it and we did it in 3.5. It was pretty cool. I ran down the whole thing and Sister T thought I was crazy. She had a tougher time, but she did it and she’s still alive! :) ...We'll see in the morning ;)

I talked to a family yesterday that is Steve and Neola’s neighbors. Did you know they moved again? Still in Maricopa just different house. They said they will tell them I said hi hahaha small world!

 GUESS who came to UT??? ....The Medleys!!!! ooooh it was crazy and sooooo goood to see them!! It was just for a small time, but I am so grateful for the time I did have. I couldn’t stop smiling!

 CONFERENCE!!!! CrAzY!!! Wow it’s been the talk of the town around here.... we are getting so many YW who are wanting to ask us for advice now whether they should go or not. It’s kind of old now. I know that’s not a good attitude, but I honestly don’t think I would have gone at 19. I know that this is where I am supposed to be here and now at this time. It’s going to be great having a toooon of new missionaries  I hope all those that choose to go... go with a full and willing heart. Missionary work is not easy, but it is so worth it!!

I didn’t get to watch all of conference because of the VC and talking to people...but I got a good chunk of it. They started out strong on Sat. There was no messing around this time. I loooved all that I heard I thought I learned a lot and answered my questions I had. I think these men are so inspired and they love us! They want the very best for us. This is a crazy time in the world.

So the new RS President, we ate dinner at her daughters house. We were looking at her family pictures and noticed her mom...we couldn’t believe it was her. Her daughter was so humble and verrry down to earth. It was so cool.

So this week...  Did I tell you about our miracle baptisms???? By the end of this week we will have 6 more baptisms!!!! WE got a call sometime last week and the Cottam family who have been waiting for over a year to get baptized called us and said IT’S TIME! So Monday night we had 4 young girls FINALLY have the opportunity to get baptized :) . The bishop had special permission to do confirmations that night and WOW!! Each girl received such an amazing blessing. Each one was so personal and as I listened to each one I thought he was giving them a Preisthood Blessing. The blessings were so special. We have 4 more Sister Missionaries in the making!! :)

On Saturday Sister T and I will have the opportunity to see the Fessago Boys get baptized :) Their mom is not ready to be baptized yet, but her time is coming :) We are so excited for this family!

So as of now I think I will be staying in my area for next transfer and yes I’ll be getting a new companion....in 10 days!

This week we got a referral for a family, they have 10 KIDS!! Crazy! 8 of them are adopted from Ethiopia and barely speak English. So Sis T and I are trying to teach them verrrry slowly ;) great great family!! We are excited for them and can’t wait to see their progression.

Things at the VC are going well. I had a hard week because it was slow a good chunk of the time so we did a lot of sitting/studying. The days that were busy were reallly busy and I talked to so many people...I don’t even know what I taught haha

I talked to a lady the other day that is from Kentucky  and she is praying for Romney. She is not a member, but she said that if he becomes our leader... it’s going to be God's way of calling his people and telling them they need to come unto Christ. She also loves Glen Beck ha-ha ... Our world is ever changing!

 Well there isn’t much else to say.

 Just remember " Put Christ’s name on, until it feels broken in."

CTR ...what do you think that means??? Choose the right? Well yes...but NOW there is a new meaning... CURRENT TEMPLE RECCOMEND :) hahaha pretty funny huh? We had a member tell us that and I laughed for a good 5 minutes about it. People here in Utah are so funny!

Wellllll love you family!

Mom....Love you like a chipmunk loves PB&J sandwiches in the forest :)

Hola my dearest familia!                              Part of an email 10-1-12

 I LOVE BEING ON A MISSION! :)

 Sooo glad Leah and mom were able to attend the Women’s Conference together. We were not able to watch it because we were serving at the VC :/ ...we miss out on those kinds of things. We also will miss out on part of General Conference because president says we are to be working on those who don’t have testimonies rather than working on our own. He is very passionate about missionary work!! :)

So this week was fuullll of lovely things!

 On Monday we met with the Feesago family again and they invited us over for dinner. We were kind of worried because they wanted to talk to us about something...we had no idea! We got there and it was pretty normal and all of the sudden they said... "So it’s time!" ...we were thinking time for what?? They pulled out this piece of paper and said we planned our baptisms! We want to be baptized Oct 13th! Is that okay for you girls?  IS THAT OKAY!? Uuuuh yesssss! We are so excited for this family. We are still working with the mom, but we are planning on her being baptized that day as well with her sons. We will have 4 baptisms that day if all works out. :)

I had some interesting interaction with people as I have served at Brigham’s this week. I went almost every day. It was busy! I met people from all over the world and as I taught them I realized how hard it would be if I didn’t know anything about the church like them. I realized how lucky I am to know the things I do. I loved being able to teach them about Brigham Young and the church.

On Thurs... We taught Hannah again....she is getting closer and closer to baptism each time we teach her. This week we talked to her about the commandments. I got to teach her the lesson this time and I used a really cool analogy, sometimes we think of the commandments as a burden or something that keeps us held back but really they are there to help us. Think of a kite. A kite has to have a string to help it fly around and stay in the sky...right? We know that if we cut the string the kite will crash to the ground. Think of yourself as a kite. We need something in our life to keep us up and help stable us..right?  That is exactly what the commandments are. They are our string. Commandment have been given to us by God because he knew this life would be hard...we needed something to help make it a little easier. I hope you can think about this. What would life be like if we didn’t have rules? Would we really be free??

Friday was the best day so far!! So Thursday we had to eat at the Church because we didn’t have a dinner date with members... some other members found us and was so mad we were eating PB&Js. They invited us for dinner for Thurs. So Thursday rolls around and we go over for dinner. They didn’t prepare anything to eat they surprised us and wanted to take us out to eat... it was kind of a hassle because of schedules, but in the end it worked out and we eat and had a great time. As we were leaving we were behind this car... the lady was waving her hands so we thought she wanted us to go around her. As we started to drive around her she jumps out of her and starts yelling at us! She then goes us up to the members car and yells at the husband "CAN YOU PUSH MY CAR ACROSS THE STREET!" ... these dumb brods are too stupid to do anything...she was bashing us hard-core. Sister Tornar and I were so confused! We were like what did we do?  I was appalled at the names she was calling us. Sister Tornar didn’t know what any of them meant so she was super confused!  The member stepped back and said whoa! Actually these are my friends I just had dinner with. I could help you if you calm down! He was so mad at what she was calling us. She jumped back in her car and just sat there. So Bro. Woolley started to push the car... he couldn’t do it by himself, the car was huge and it was stuck in the groove of the street. Sooooo Sister Tornar and I jumped behind the car (IN OUR SKIRTS) and helped Bro Woolley push this car across this busy street. We had no choice but to push her out in the middle of traffic...we had cars slamming on their brakes and inches away from hitting us. It was pretty scary, but all we could do was laugh and laugh while we were pushing. We finally got her across this street and turned around and people were laughing because we were in skirts. The lady never got out of her car to talk to us. She was so embarrassed as to the way she acted. WE never really understood what was wrong with her but Sister Tornar walked away and said I’m so glad we helped her...I think we acted very Christ like with a huge grin. I was laughing soooo hard I couldn’t breathe! We thought about that for the rest of the night. We said "we wish more things like that happened to us..That was fun!" hahaha I hope that someday she sees missionaries again and ends up talking to them :) She could really use some happiness in her life :)

This week I got to go on many companion exchanges- So I got to go out in my area and teach with another Sister. I went on 3 different ones this week. It was such a great experience to be able to learn from other Sisters :)

Well this week has been full of laughter and crazy moments. I love it here!! Sister Tornar goes home in 3 weeks....we can’t believe its October already!!! I feel like it should be Feb still...where has my life gone all this time! I still can’t believe I am on a mission! I am learning so much here and really growing. Life is so full of complicated things, but really there is only one important thing, our Heavenly Father! Putting him in front of everything is the only thing that is going to help get us through this test we are trying to take.  I know that as you read your scriptures and attend church with the mindset that you’re going to learn something... your mind will be opened to so many great things. Try attending church with the Idea "today I am going to receive revelation"...go to church with life questions in mind... you will be answered. Enjoy church, love church. I wish I was able to attend it more often.

Thank you for your ultimate love and support :) Love you all...think about you often!

 Well I think that’s all for now...

Tell Paula I got her card :)

 Mom... I love you like a Dinosaur loves meat!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox