Go forth with faith!

Transfer calls aaaaaand.....

I'm staying in Toronto YSA! I love this city and the people here!

This morning, the assistants called and said they didn't get around to calling us last night and had transfer news for us.....MY HEART STOPPED. They told Sister Waldron that she would be getting a new companion named....Chevy Malibu. 

NOT FUNNY.

So now we get a car! But still not funny.
First of all, I just want to thank every single person that contributed to my charity project a year ago for my Living Prophets class at BYU. This past week, I have thought a lot about the importance of having charity and how essential it is in missionary work. I read through everyone's responses from my project and wrote down everything that describes charity and learned that there are so many ways to express charity and to BE charitable! I'm excited to work on loving people perfectly, the way Christ does.

"There is nothing that will persuade someone more than loving them." 

^^ Truth.

Also, there were a lot of people that gave us a lot of fruit one day, so that was really nice!

Last week, Sister Waldron and I went to Kensington Market where they have all these thrift stores and hole-in-the-wall food places. There were so many hippies and hipsters and I just can't get over how I always feel like I'm in a movie here in Toronto! Every single part of downtown is different and I feel like I'm in a different part of the world everywhere I go. Crazy city, but I love it!

We visited a girl named Marcela this week. She was one of our potential investigators and she and her family are from Slovakia. We went to share a spiritual thought with her and her family, but realized it would be a lot harder than we thought, because of the language barrier. Language barriers are my favorite because it forces us as missionaries to teach super simply and to just testify-- that is when I learn to just get out of the way and that is when the spirit is the strongest.

David is so good! When we taught him the Word of Wisdom last week, he said he had quit drinking three weeks before-- God was preparing him! He is so cool. He is preparing for baptism this next Sunday!

Rodolfo is so cool. He has such a sweet heart and is so determined to follow Jesus Christ. He, too is getting baptized this month!

We are also teaching an Albanian guy named Besnik. He is so funny. He always talks about chips and tv and other random things. He's a keeper. Set for baptism this month!

This week we taught a girl named Snow. She is AMAZING. We met her outside the subway station last week and she was super interested in meeting with us. We met her this week and taught her the restoration and she realized that baptism is so important for us to understand where we stand with God and how when we are baptized, we know who we follow and serve and are bound to. She accepted baptism for the end of this month! She is so cool.

We also taught Jonathan. He has so much potential! I'm grateful that God has a plan for each of us and that, no matter where we are in the stages of our lives, God is always there to lift us up-- if we let Him. 

One day we got on the subway and a man said hello to us and told us he was going to die. He then went off about how we believe in fantasies and made-up things that make us feel good. Then another day a man was asking us a bunch of questions and was getting super frustrated and didn't believe the things we testified of. Then another girl told us that the book of Mormon isn't history and that we shouldn't need to add to the Bible because the Bible is enough. All these things just make me think of how grateful I am and how lucky I am to have a knowledge of this Gospel. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior, that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God called to restore Christ's church to the earth, and that this church is the Lord's kingdom on the earth. Truth is restored, people! And we have full access to God's love and direction. How blessed are we to live in this dispensation!

TerriAnne. She is an angel. She has been through so much in her life but knows so perfectly how important it is that we stay near to God. God loves His children so deeply. TerriAnne's example of humility and desire to know God is so admirable.

This weekend we had Stake Conference and Elder Holland and President Eyring spoke to us over a broadcast. It was so good! I learned wonderful things.

Let us all go forth with faith to tell the world of Jesus Christ the Lord! Bear witness He is God's own Son; proclaim His wondrous word! Go forth with hope and courage strong to spread the word abroad that people of all nations are children of our God.

Share the Gospel with your friends, share the joy!

Love y'all!

how great reason have we to rejoice!

I have said it once and I'll say it again...I live in the great and spacious! It's all about living IN the world, not OF the world. It's a balancing act, I tell ya.

A lot of our appointments cancelled this week, so we had loads of time to contact. We went to Ryerson University this week-- you would think YSA people would be more receptive to a message of hope and happiness and truth, especially if it means being able to stand out amongst the crowd! So, because everyone was suuuuuper nice to us that day, we called Oliver and told him that we need him to come contacting next time-- we know that if Oliver stands next to us while we share a message of the gospel with them, they would be too intimdated/scared to run away or not listen... so we got this next time! We also went to Queens Park and did "Questions of the Soul" surveys-- it was SUCH a beautiful day and there were so many people out, so it was perfect! 

On Friday to Saturday we had exchanges! I went to Mississauga with Sister Stoddard and its so beautiful there! Partially because it reminded me of Utah--without the mountains. During our exchange, I learned so much! I'm so grateful to be able to learn from other sisters and be reminded of my strengths but also recognize where I can improve. The Lord always helps us by building us up, not tearing us down-- that's Satan. Everything we do and say and are all begins with a thought. We must always keep our minds a holy place so we can distinguish between good and evil in everything. 

To prepare for exchanges, we studied Alma 26 along with the topic of how I find joy in missionary service. Alma 26 and 27 are so amazing! Read them and reread them! I realized that verse 1 describes perfectly how I find joy in missionary service:

"And now, these are the words of Ammon to his brethren, which say thus: My brothers and my brethren, behold I say unto you, how great reason have we to rejoice; for could we have supposed when we started from the land of Zarahemla that God would have granted unto us such great blessings?"

How great reason have we to rejoice. No matter what we go through in life or what we don't understand or what we lack, etc-- the fact that the fulness of the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is on the earth to never be taken away again is reason enough to rejoice. The gospel is true and we get to be apart of it! How great reason have we to rejoice! The church is true and God loves us. Blessings are so abundant in these latter-days! Let us choose to partake of them.

Without Christ, nothing would be possible. For Gospel Principles yesterday, Sister Waldron and I got to teach about the Atonement. I found myself so jumbled with my thoughts and words, but my simple testimony that I was able to bear reminded me that our Savior and His infinite sacrifice is perfect and that, because of Him, all things are possible.

http://easter.mormon.org/ 

(Kell, could you imbed this video instead of making it a link? If so, that would be great! If not, no worries :) thank you! the pics are not great sorry ha, I'll try to send more. its hard because we can't look like tourists, so we basically can't take pictures during the week, which is the only time we are downtown where all the cool buildings and cathedrals and things are)

Have a great week! Remember the Savior and always serve others because you love Him!