Feb 26th

Hey Family!  

 

Big big week this week!  The first and biggest news is that I got a transfer.  That wasn't a big a surprise because we knew that I would have to get a transfer because Sister Margolies is going home!  But the big surprise is that I will be training.  And I think that it is a Russian sister that I will be training.  My first Russian Companion will be my last companion! Crazy huh?  Well at least my Russian will improve I guess...well maybe...hopefully....But I’m pretty nervous about it.  I felt good about it when president told me and I know that it is what Heavenly Father wants, pretty sure He wants me to learn a lot. I feel like I have to become the best missionary in the whole world in one week but that won't happen.....but anyways I thought that I was ok with it until I couldn't sleep last night haha! I woke up at 3 and couldn't sleep so I cleaned some and wrote some letters and studied some :) haha it was a very productive morning. Because of a lack of sisters and crazy visa trips etc etc we have to leave for Novosibirsk on Wednesday to be with a sister there for a week and wait for my new companion....so I will be away from my area for a long time which always stinks. But Heavenly Father knows where we are and I can do good work where ever. For example there was a family here at internet who just couldn't figure out how to use the computer and needed to type some in English so I helped out. They were amazed that I could understand Russian and English and use a computer! haha so talented :) haha jk. but you can have a good influence where ever you are. 

 

It was Man's Day this week. Ya it’s a holiday here haha so great.  And so we celebrated. on last Monday the elders came over to our apartment and we made them sweet and sour chicken and a cake. They loved it haha. Ya I am such a sister missionary. before my mission I swore I wouldn't be one of the those sister missionaries that just cooked and baked for the elders haha but turns out I have become every sister missionary I swore I wouldn't become haha it just makes the elders so so happy to get home cooked food :)  we were at our investigators house, we teach him and his mom and we brought him chocolate for the holiday.  I asked him "Oleg, do you like chocolate?" and he said as serious as death "I respect Chocolate" haha it was so great! I respect chocolate too! haha and then he showed us he bought a chocolate cake for us to eat with him and he just cut it in fourths and gave us a fourth of a cake! holy cow it was so good but really not..... and then we had a branch party for the men which was so funny. and it was great because they played do you love your neighbor game, it was so funny with all the adults and old people haha.  they loved it! 

 

There was a baptism on Sunday! it was so great! it is this 16 year old boy who has been wanting to get baptized for MONTHS and his dad wouldn't let him and finally he said yes!  his name is Valeri!   he is so great and so strong!  HIs mom, brother and grandma came to the baptism and the Spirit was so strong.   Our investigator Tamara came to the baptism and she loved it. We invited her to be baptized and she accepted!  It will be in a month’s time because she is right now trying to quit smoking. so pray for her to have the strength to do so! she is great and is already doing missionary work! 

 

This weekend was also a holiday. I’m not really sure how it translates but it’s like Oil, or butter holiday. started Tuesday or wed....you have to eat blini (crepe things) every day and feed everyone that comes over blini and on Sunday you forgive everyone that you are offended by haha or something like that. haha I talked to some lady about it and suggested maybe we should do it every week. that way we can always be forgiving people AND always have blini! :) she thought it was a good idea. 

 

we called up an old contact named Elena who knows English...I think I told you about her last week....well the young girl that came with her to meet us invited us over to her house to meet her family and celebrate the holiday with them. She has a great great family!  I don't know but they might be our miracle family. A STRONG HAPPY FAMILY!  haha you don't see that much here!  two girls (3 and 12) and a mom and dad. The mom is a surgeon which here in Russia pays about as much as a teacher in America! pretty bad huh?  I couldn't believe it!  she says that she loves her job but the pay is like a side job. her husband is an engineer and supports the family.  they live in a HOUSE.  and a nice one.   crazy.  never seen anything like it in Russia.  we got to know them and talked about our purpose in being here and how much it means to us. they invited us back over to have us tell about how our church is different from others.  unfortunately that will be in a weekish because of transfers but I hope the interest doesn't die out before that. 

 

I got a letter from Sister Kate Giles in the mail! haha sounds like she is doing good and she loves her mission! haha Kate! she is probably the best missionary in the whole world I am guessing. she is just so bubbly and out there! they probably love her! 

 

hmmm......the members here are great!  the relief society sets up meetings with us and her and calls us to tell us when they are! haha she is the best ever!  and she checks up on all our old investigators and calls every once and awhile to invite them to keep meeting with us haha oh man she is great! her name is Tatiana.  

 

There is a man who just got the priesthood and then was called as the second counselor in the branch. his wife as started to come to church (not a member) she is my next best friend. she is nice.She didn't really like me all that much at first but I think she is warming up.  I had no idea that the secret to life is to just assume that everyone loves you and wants to be your friend!  and you just love everyone and want to be their friend and the world becomes a beautiful place! we should all just try to be friends and assume the best of everyone.   

 

Today I read in the Doctrine and Covenants 51:9 and felt inspired to study about being a steward. We are already given each a stewardship in our lives and I already had one as a missionary but now I feel like I have been added an extra this transfer. I have a lot that I will be asked to account for I think. But it was a good study.  I came up with us analogy...or parable...or something.    So, let’s pretend I decided to start a business of designing and creating earrings.  (which by the way would be really really sweet)  at first I didn't have that many requests and clients but as time went on I got more and more and I couldn't handle it all by myself......soooo I hired some people to work for me and gave them some responsibilities and had others designing and making them for me. But of course I would want them to do it as cool as I would and as good as quality as if I was making them myself.  that is what I would expect from the people that I entrusted to my work.  Or another example. a gymnastics coach. So many people want to come to their gym and so they have to hire more people. This reminded me of Tammy because she is so careful about how she picks people to work with her and what she expects of them.  She looks for people who will work hard and honestly. who have a good attitudes, who know how to love the children and take care of them, are willing to learn and get better and who she can trust to do all she would if she were the coach.   This is how our Heavenly Father is as well. He has a work.  His work is to "Bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man"  and He has called us as His steward to help Him and to be His Hands. We need to work and do what He would do. That is a huge task but He has entrusted us and we are entitled to His help.     That also brings what I learned about accounting to the Lord. We shouldn't just account in the end to Him at the judgment day but if we check in daily with Him and ask Him how he thinks we are doing with HIs work now He can help correct us and teach us daily how we can improve.  for example Tammy can teach and correct a small mistake and they can become better coaches and co workers continually.  and with the earring thing. maybe they could ask me what I thought and I could give a little feed back before it’s too late haha. there are twelve hundred little kids playing games and over my shoulder watching me write in English and wanting me to leave haha it’s hard to concentrate haha so it’s over!

 

But I love you, the church is true! you are great! I love you so much!  

 

Sister Trottier

 

Feb 19th

well....family i think if i calculated right you are currently sitting on a red eye on  your way home from Kauai!  How was it? what did you do?  was it all that we ever dreamed and hoped for audge and jake?  did you rent motor bikes and ride around the island? haha SEND PICTURES! this is important!  the weather here can't decide if it wants to get warmer or be freezing haha but its not bad at the moment. around negative 10 or so. Tomsk is greati love it. and i love being here. People are nice and open....most times :) well sometimes haha i have alot to say and i wrote down alot to write to you, but i have a bad confession. I feel like those elders that right one paragraph home because they have nothing to say :) haha or just because we are too lazy..not sure which one it is.  but at the moment i am listening to that song that i told you i loved the My soul Hungered. its on lds.org under youth and then music and its the last one..if you want to listen....its good. :)  

we went to a russian village this week! ya it was pretty sweet.my first real russian village and it was cool. it was just a 20 min bus ride or so outside of Tomsk. we have two cute new young girl baptisms. They come to church with their newly baptized aunt. their family are all members but inactive, but actually they are being great examples and their mom has come to church two weeks in a row!!! it is great!  These girls are so amazing. one is 9 and one is 12 and we drew and read the dream of lehi and they had all these great insights of what each of the symbols could mean to them in their lives right now that i had never thought about. Young people now really have great capacity to know and understand spiritual things. they are so close to Heaven. 

Speaking of Lehis dream. I love it. i think i have said that twelve million times, but it makes me so so happy.  We read it with everyone and i learn more and more as we analyze it with more and more people of all ages and testimony strengths. 

Last week i hit my one year mark in Russia.  Can you believe it?! I can't. I feel like i have been here for forever!  but at the same time i can't believe a year has gone by! so much has happened to me and to others and everything in the time i have been away. craziness. 

so we went to a new members house, a mom and grandma and 15 year old boy.  They are so strong and great i had no idea that they had only been members for a year! anyways haha we asked for their story and you will never believe this, but this is how it happened!  So this kid he watched South Park, you know that dumb tv show? ya well there is an episode about the book of mormon and mormons in general and he loves to read and he just said he just felt this HUGE desire to read that book. and he said to his mom, i want a Book of Mormon and his mom didn't know where to get one and he just kept buggin her about it and so not knowing, where do you get a book?  a book store of course!  and they went in and ask and the lady said "ugh. we don't like them and we don't have one. but you can find one on Mira 10A"!! haha she gave them our address!  so finally after the boy bugged her some more they went to the address and asked for a Book of Mormon! haha crazy huh!? after they were baptized the mom went to the book store and thanked the lady and the lady was somewhat horrified that they joined....haha but people do missionary work with outeven knowing it! haha so thank you to the writers of South Park.  If for only this one family they helped them find everything they needed. haha

we have found and refound people that used to have lessons with the missionaries. all of them are great.  i hope that some of them we can help.  There are two young girls named Lida and Masha that are just great and a babooshka named Zinaida and a family!  The mom is Elena and she knows english.  She has two little boys 4 and 4 months and a great husband named Artor. They are like no other family ihave met so far here. strong and happy and loving and have hopes and dreams. it will be a slow process but i hope a forward one :) 

so there is this weird thing that they do in Russia. They have their hot water pipes in the bathrooms on the outside of the wall, i don't know why...maybe to like hang your towels on or something so they are warm or something, dn't know. but ours is SUPER HOT! and they aren't supposed to be that hot. just luke warm our is scalding and it is right next to the sink and in the way. so my first day here i had no idea about this danger in our house and i almost burnt my whole arm off!  and got blisters and everything! and like a week later i got my shoulder and yesterday i got it again on my arm but in different place. I told sister margolies i was going to tell people it was part of companionship inventory haha.  but anyways....kinda funny but not....we are trying to think of something to cover it with but we are worried if its a towel it will catch on fire or something..have any ideas?

The Parable of the Pomello

Background info:  I have fallen in love with a fruit called a pomello that is like a grapefruit but not as messy. the way to tell if they are ripe is how orange they are....or so Sister Sanford told me

Story: we were at the grocery store and i was going to buy a pomello and so i looked for the most orange one!  i was so excited! it was a beautiful color of orange. so the next day i get it out to eat it, and i take off the mesh wrapping and guess what else was on there!?!!  orange cellophane!  ya! thats right!  ORANGE! andi took off the cellophane only to find that it was sickly pale yellow color!!  tricky tricky huh? The people that wanted to sell that pomello knew what i would look for

application:  alot of applications you can find her of course. don't judge a book by the cover.  the world makes things look different from what they really are. more and more. think about it.  

I had another parable to tell you about being lost but the time just told me that i am alsmost up!  So quick run down.

yesterday we had a meeting with a lady and we thought we kinda knew how to get there so we got on a bus and got off on our stup and were pretty sure where to go so we just set off and turned left.  we walked and walked and soon realized we should have been there by now,. we asked a few people difreaction on the street and all kinda pointed us the same ish direction but a little off from each other. finally we got out the map and tried to find it ourselves and got on buses and walked awhile and more buses. finally we called the lady and she got us to her house in no time!  we finished the lesson and then went to find the bus stop and low and behold we were right back where we had started!   after like an hour of searching we were just RIGHT of the bus stop!!!  so our problems?

1. relied on our own wisdom and knowledge- didn't ask the owner of the house or even look at a map

2.  Asked the wrong people who also didn't know perfectly - trusted what they said with out question

3. finally used the map but tried with out asking for help,  and after agian asked people who didn't know.

4 FINALLY we called the owner of the house and with her directions and use of the map we got there

so if you want to get to Gods Kingdom, use the fourth step :)  duh 

read a good talk on changing our hearts and it being seen that we changed. Is our change visable?  

Gotta go! love ya! church is true! 

Sister Trottier

Feb 13th

Hey family....well....i don't have much to say today. which is bad because everything is all new and crazy and great. But i don't have much to say really.... i don't even remember what i told you about Tomsk yet, but it is a great place. it just has a whole completely different atmosphere than anywhere else! really people are more open and willing to talk to you. and its really alot of cleaner here and it just has a different feel.  we have a great apartment. Really cute and clean and nice. with a great couch which isn't usually the case :) The branch is GREAT!!  The members do what they are supposed to do!  The do missionary work. They fulfill their callings!  They love and support each other!  Not that other branches i have served in were bad but these guys are just incredible!  If there is one thing i have learned it is what kind of a Church member i want to be.  I think it is going to be alot harder than it sounds but it makes all the difference. we need to be excellent church members if we want the Kingdom of God on the earth the grow. I feel like alot of the things that i wished i was i have become closer to becoming. but that also could just be because i am longer and longer on the mission :)  I wish i was a perfect missionary at the beginning of my mission or even now! think of all the good that could have been done! but i think that is not the point. The Lord doesn't call perfect people, He calls people who need to change and who need to learn.  

Today I read an article in the new ensign the one from Elder Cook- "The Doctrine of the Father".  I love it so so so much! I want to use it in all of my lessons for the rest of my life.  i would go through and tell you each part by each part but that would not be effective and you can read it on your own :)  We have alot of investigators here.  And have had a lot of meetings and alot of member present lessons (which are the best).  I hope that some of them come through as progressing investigators that can make eternal covenants with God and eventually go to the temple and be sealed with their families.   Which" is the penultimate act on Earth - all else is merely leading us towards that eternal bond." (words from Tyler Huish).  Its so true. How incredible that our Heavenly Father has given us this opportunity.  I have been teaching alot about temples and families. Its great. 

I am attaching some of what i wrote to president cause i don't want to retype it :)

Tomsk is great! i love it!

First i should tell you about our meeting with Aidai. She was great and very interested. She doesnt know much about what she believes or religion but she is searching for truth. She is a very bright and amazing young woman. We talked mostly about our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Next lesson we will go back and do the first lesson. She said she couldnt make it this last sunday to church but she is interested in coming and seeing how it all goes. She agreed to pray and read and said that she would have to think alot and know more before she would be baptized. She knelt with us to pray but didn't want to pray herself. I think it went well. we are going to invite her to institute tomorrow. We had a member, returned missionary with us on the lesson. she was a great help!

As with the rest of the work, its great. they had alot of eternal investigators and i have made it my goal to try to get them on the fast track to their Heavenly Father. I hope that i can make a difference. We have one investigator Tamara who is great, just needs to quit smoking. She is having a small operation on her throat tomorrow and will be up and about after ten days. I have decided to try having a investigator/inactive calling list and put them on a 3 or 2 or 1 week list and just calling them to let them know we love and encourage them. this way we don't have to meet with the same inactives all the time but we can still let t hem know we love them.

As for me and sister margolies all is great! Its like having my best friend as my companion again. she is great. its fun to be back together after we have both grown and learned a little bit more what it means to be a missionary. We have awesome elders who keep us going and make it so we have to run to catch up with them (literally and figuratively speaking when it comes to the work)

I feel like alot of what i have always wished i was as a missionary i have come closer to reaching. I am thankful for that help from Heavenly Father. I feel like my Russian is going downhill though...not up. I am going to redo my language plan and try to double up on language working :)

well...that was a lame letter probably :) sorry. But i love you alot. and i know the church is true. I know that Heavenly Father loves us and He knows what He is doing. I know that the gospel blesses lives and families. Miracles happen.  

I love you!

Sister Trottier

Feb 5th

WELL......EVERYTHING has changed! haha I am in Tomsk right now and my new companion is Sister Margolies.... again :)  haha but you already knew that :)  but i am so excited. it is great to be with her again. She has become like an extra sister. You will get to know her after the mission i am sure :)  and this week was crazy crazy.  Some more good bye meetings in Novo which is always sad. Especially with little Anya. But we went over with a present and some love and scriptures. We gave her a sketch book because she loves to draw and we encouraged her to develop her talent. it was the cutest thing she said "And your talent is to be Sister Missionaries".  I almost started crying. it was so so sweet. I hope that is my talent. Or at least i would like to practice so that is my talent, to be a servant of the Lord.  It reminded of me of that talk in General Conference where the man had a girl ask if he was a REAL missionary.  Little Anya's voice will be in my head always now i think helping me want to develop my talent of being a missionary. 

Sister Conference was INCREDIBLE! haha it was so great! all the sisters together! which is 11 i think?  it was  such a party! first we got an invitation which sister Gibbons made haha it was so sister missionary like! all the elders were jealous! they said that they never get invitations! it was colorful and included words such as "Chat, visit, Chocolate, Cinnamon Rolls, and Ballet" :) i will forward it to you if i remember :)  We learned a ton a ton.  President spoke a few times. The first time was about HOPE and LIGHT and he related it to a old jewish tradition of a red thread. which is symbolic of HOPE.  did you know that the old hebrew word for hope is Tikba which is translated hope OR thread. and he talked about 5 women in the bible of hope and 3 have stories connected to a red thread.  Tamar, Rachab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary.  I would go through the stories but i don't have much time and if you really want to know you can study it some and you can ask and i will share :) President talked about alot LIGHT  christs light, how we need to be light.  

Sister Gibbons talked alot about opening our hearts, having open soft, willing and repentant hearts. that is key for us.  one of the keys to being happy and successful is having the right desires in our hearts.  she also talked about keeping the most important things in our lives. What is precious to us safe.

Intestesting, President talked about how the book of mormon says "it mattereth not" 4 times in the Book of mormon.  ALMA 61:9 - Critisism is not important let it roll off your back ETHER 12:37 if other people don't love us. as long as we do our part, love them and serve them and serve God.  MORMON 8:4 After we accomplish what we were send here to accomplish and do what the Lord wants, nothing else matters, as long as we fulfill our parts of dicsiple ship.  ETHER 15:34 So many things don't mattter as long as we do what we need to do be saved and build up the kingdom. 

They of course told us love stories cause it was a sisters conference!  haha they told us how their parents met which were crazy and how they met! he read us some of Sister Gibbons journal entries haha she kept a great accurate detailed journal from the day they met until they got engaged. it was so cute!  they let us read all of them for our bed time story! haha ya, we had a sleep over! it was great! first time in a long time with so much girls and food etc etc. 

it was crazy. they talked all about us as wives and mothers, kinda leaving out the whole we are missionaries part....haha oh well i guess.   learned alot for future reference.  

we also had a testimony meeting with all the sisters. I know them all and love them so much!  the crazy thing is that most of us will be going home soon so everyone will be new.  We have 6 new sisters coming in in the next 4 months and 7 leaving and then two months after that 2 more leave. or something crazy like that.  its craziness! 

then we went to the ballet, Swan Lake. it was really good!  I think i have come to enjoy ballets more :)  sorry about that. But the only time before i liked to watch when audrey was dancing. but the swan princess lady reminded me of how audrey danced.  very reagal and confident and beautiful. she was super over flexible and i wonder if it is bad to have TOO much of an arch? ya know?  i know know. but if it is. she had too much.  sat by a girl who thought i was going to travel the world my whole life and be a missionary :) haha i laughed. It would be cool. but no.  we gotta live normal life too. have families and serve the Lord in different ways.

mom- we are trying to start geneology stuff here for people to come learn how. but I need to to send maybe some pictures of my great great grandparents and wateever you can find. not real ones. just copies if you could.  :) thanks.  i guess we have to be examples or something before we aske people to do it...although i didn't do it. My grandpas did.... :) but don't tell :)

Sister Sanford and i had a miracle day for our last day! what a great way to end ya? first it started off bad. our meeting canceled two minutes before haha and we were looking over our planners and lists and some one called. This is the conversation

Me- Hello

HEr-  Whats your name

Me - Sister Trottier

Her- what does that mean? who is this?

Me uh we are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints

Her- what? is this a church?

me- Yes we are missionaries

H- i have pamphlet and i have read it a couple times and it says i need a book of mormon to read and ask God if its true. I don't have a book of Mormon.

M- Well that is great we would love to get one to you

H- my granddaughter recieved this pamphlet in october and she didn't want it so i read it and i love it. I want to read the Book of Mormon.

M. Ok well we have time right now can we come over?

H- ya come on over!

so we did of course AND called a member who just happened to be about her age and who happened to live right by her and who happened to be home!  i felt like such a normal PMG missionary! it was so great!  she was way nice and way great.

We then had another investigator meeting with Nastya. She told us she wants to get baptized but her parents are against. We would like to meet them but they live in an area we aren't allowed in. its like a military base or something....she she is great.

THEN one of the girls i love from english who hasen't come in a while wanted to meet with us. she always asked us to not talk about the gospel with her but i brought a book of mormon and wrote a whole bunch to her. She came and i just told her how much the gospel means to me and gave her the book and asked if she would meet with the sisters. and She said yes! it was great!   and then we went to say bye to the webbs...that was sad. but i will see them alot anyways.

anyways....this email is all over the place and not in order, but thats ok i guess.  so me and sisters margolies, sanford and holmes all drove with president and sister gibbons to tomsk which is like 4 weeks. it was way way great and fun! we got to pick presidents brain for the whole time and ask him all sorts of questions.  best ever!

Tomsk is great. it has a great feeling of excitment and energy! i can just feel the miracles waiting to happen here.  its more european feeling. its one of the oldest cities with great architecture, but there are alot of universtities so alot of youth from all over the world and so all inside the buildings are modern stores etc etc. We have a REAL branch building that is beautiful. and HUGE and the members are great. I have been here one day and i feel close to some of them already. they are open and loving.

We found a new lady yesterday on the street who is really nice. Her name is galina.  she is an investigator right now with the Jehovah witnesses....kinda worried about that as well. but she is really nice and wants to meet....pray for that one ok?

met with a family that has like 12 million people living in one apartment with a million kids.  The kids are so cute and they just need love. you can tell when we go there because they just meet us with big grins and hugs! and don't want us to go.  we then of course talked alot with us as sisters about how blessed we are. I can't believe how some people live. I can't even imagine how it would be.  

its getting WARM! haha i know it sounds crazy but i woke up and looked outside and i siad that i thought it looked cold and sister Holmes looked at the thermometer and said no actually its only negative 15!  its spring sister! and i was so happy! haha and then we thought about it and realized we are crazy cause we think -15 is warm haha but it really is comparatively :)  I hope it stays warm and doesn't go back. 

I love something one of the sister Said that is going home soon, she said " When something ends, something else begins"  its very true. gotta just keep living in what you are doing at the moment. find the Joy.  Rejoice. we have alot to be hapy about and lovei n life. 

Read Moses 6:61- they are 12 synynoms for the Holy Ghost. Pretty cool.

Sorry...no picturse today :(   sister sanford and her beautiful camera cord are in Novo. I will try to figure out how to do it again but no promises :) 

Welp.    The Church is true.  The gospel is the way.  We can live happily.  We can succeed.  Its so great. I love you all so so much!

Love Sister Trottier

Another week in the Neighborhood......:)

Hello All!

 

Thanks for all the emails! haven't read them all but i will :) 

 

Had a great week and it was full of interesting great things.  AND FREEZING!!! haha it is below negative 30 here! haha BELOW!!! oh man! they told us that it was done being cold but i think that they were joking. This week they said that it might get down to negative 40! oh man oh man. its hysterical!  we seriously dont know what to do sometimes. We just randomly start laughing! and sister sanford asks, "whats funny?" and i say "its cold!" haha it will be a winter to remember. The funniest is that when we talk to people they look at us like we are crazy that we are trying to talk to them!  There is a very significantly less amount of people on the street this week.  but surprisingly alot alot of people at church. we have such great members who are so valiant! 

 

as you can see in the pictures on monday we went to the ice city! it was sweet! and really cold so no one else was there! haha it was great! and alot more fun than we thought it would be! and we already thought that it was going to be fun.  i was nervous to go down the slide at first but it was sweet! we were all like little kids again!  after we went to carls jr and ate burgers...mmmmg good!

 

Tuesday was our last english club for awhile which was interesting but kind of a relief. we are going to revamp the whole thing and make it better and funner and more effective.  elder topham gave a huge great spiritual thought and just killed it!  seriously! the spirit was so strong you could have swam through it. and like half of the missionaries got one or more contacts.

 

grandmas cookies came and they were the best in the whole world!  soft still even!  if you are home you only get 1 haha if you are in russia you get 6 or so! haha im stayin! haha jk :)

 

wednesday we had fun in snigory. it was sad to say bye to elya though. i love her so much.  and then this one lady we met on the street one time who came to music night wanted the recipe of one of sister webbs treats but instead we invited her and her daughter over and had a cooking night. it was alot of fun and i think she will be willing to do more activites and learn more in the future. she is way nice. her name is elena.  all about all of us being brothers and sisters and just doing good in the world. she is great.

 

saturday we went to bed with only thoughts of plans because nothing was going through, no one was answering etc etc etc.  and we went out in faith hoping and praying we would be contacting in -30 degree weather!   we did for a little while which was craziness. couldn't move my face...but then some one called back and another answered their phone and some one else let us in when we dropped by! it was a miracle!  sometimes you just have to trust in the Lord and walk out into the snow.  He will make things happen, AFTER we exercise our faith.  sometimes the fact that it is AFTER is the hard part.....

 

sunday was tough saying bye to everyone. i have come to love these people so much. just like my family. they were all telling me that it was a good thing president gibbons didn't come to their branch this week because they would talk to him and not let me go :) they are so sweet. i realized that it is a little bit sad for the members here.  and i realized more why they have a hard time becoming close to us sometimes. because we become friends and family and then after we are all realy close we get transferred.  its sad. and they are sad. and someo f them say  stuff like i will just leave and forget all about t hem and find new people to love and then i will go home to america and not even remember my family in russia. 

 

 It has been really good for me to be with sister sanford. she is so positive and if we mess up she just says...welp, can't change it now. we can just repent and do better next time! its alot healthier than always just focusing on what you should have done.. you can't change the past, but you can determine the future....this may sound similiar....i think i may relearn the same things over and over every couple weeks. i hope that they get deeper and deeper engrained in my heart and soul each time :) anyways, Sister Sanford has helped me change the way i think so that even though the stats dont show alot she has helped me see what good i have done here and how i have helped.   And i am really grateful to her for that.  

 

cut my hair today again....i feel way more like myself when i cut my hair haha but also its weird cut....i think ann will be worried a bit. but i will just cut most my hair off anyways when i get home.

 

i studied alot about doing missionary work with members.  its so so important. the only way for missionary work to work the way that we want it to. but its hard.  BUT i had a revelation.  There is a story about Member refferrals in the Book of Mormon! you can find everything in there! its Lamoni's father!  he was referred by Lamoni, and then Lamoni referred his whole household and THEN his WHOLE KINGDOM! and you know what? they became the type of members that never did fall away but always had faith!  If you get converts who have friends in the church they support each other and they are already interetested and know you aren't crazy. AND when you ahve members teaching and sharing they strengthen their testimonies and have more friends to support them. its just a great awesome cycle!

 

i have also been studing all in the doctrine and covenants! its all about missionaries and missionary work! or...maybe everything just is because i am a missionary.... :)  aren't the scriptures great?

 

my transfer is focused on light.   We decorate our planners every transfer and i have begun making themes for my transfers.   The front Cover is Christ with Mosiah 16:9 and the back is lanterns with 3 nephi 12:16.  great verses that have been helping me to remember to let my light shine and to bring light to other people. and also to remember where that light comes from.

 

there was a great fireside all about the difference between just being an active member and being converted. it was incredible.  its a good thing to thing about. it includes letting the gospel change us and our hearts. living the doctrines. repenting, studying. changing. its hard. but worth it i  would think.

 

welp, thats about all of my time this week. I am glad you liked last weeks letter haha. the rules about how long we can be on internet were changed and so we give ourselves more time and its less stressful and i am not freaking out trying to write haha. its nice.  I love you so much!

 

The gospel is true. Study it. Share it. Live it.

 

Sister Trottier