Laconia, Week 2

Hello Family!

Well this week has definitely been a very odd one.  It all started with not being able to go out and do much and ended with not much still. 

Tuesday:  We stayed at the swains a lot because they had a chair that was perfect for sister vanderhoef.  then we ventured out into the real world to pick up some necessities, like food.  Mainly food.  After that, Sister Vanderhoef was wiped so we went back and I read some scriptures and cross stitched a little bit.  Also we have now watched ever single movie that a missionary can watch.  So all the ones we own.  There are not very many, so we have seen them multiple times now.  I think I can almost quote the restoration movie... the long one.  And that has actually been much of this last week.  Our social event of the week was going to district meeting on Thursday.  There I had the grand opportunity to play accompaniment on the violin.  Now this was not just any violin this violin was old.  And not in the best of shape.  every time I tried to tune it it kept sliding, and oh, I forgot to mention that it had a giant crack down the front of it.  And then I got really nervous because I hadn't played in a long time, and suddenly I was expected to be great, so I started to shake and everybody could hear me warming up, plus it was people I had never met before and the assistants were there as well so I got even more nervous.  But after the first couple of notes I was ok.  Not great.  But ok.  So I survived.  The district leader, Elder Holley was nice and said I did a good job, he is the one that supplied the violin.  Yeah.  I just felt really embarrassed.  But hey, life is great.

Oh yeah, We ate at a members house, and they are vegan, and the tofu they made was really good.  I loved it.  They were fantastic.  Their names are the paladinos and they were so funny.  And it was great because all the food they made sister Vanderhoef could eat. 

Oh another random topic,  the members we live with have a dairy farm, and I told them that I have always wanted to milk a cow, so this transfer Sister Vanderhoef and I are going to milk a cow. :)  I am so excited.  It will be great!

To be honest that has basically been my week.  Sister Vanderhoef and I have had a lot of bonding time.  Since we have both been out for a while we both has lots of stories and she played soccer for Lehi so we just have fun stories to share and we get along really well.  I really like her. :)

So that is pretty much it for this last week.  I am super excited for this coming week though, because now I will be able to go and meet some more people! :)

I really like it here though and the people here are great.  It has been really cool to meet everybody that I have so far.  :)

Love always and Forever,

Sister Lundahl

Laconia, New Hampshire

Hey all!

So that is where I am.  I am in the glorious state of New Hampshire!  And I love it.  I have now been to all the three main states of our mission. :)  

So to start my: 

Tuesday, we had transfer meeting and it was crazy.  We were running a little late to it but at least we got there.  And then as they were announcing I totally didn'tt hear where I was going just who my companion was, Sister Vanderhoef!  And then where I found out that I was gonig t oLaconia! I was so excited.  I heard about Laconia on my very first day in the mission and ever since then I have wanted to serve here. :)  and now I am.  

I also found out on Tuesday that my companion was getting her Gall bladder out on Thursday... What?  Yes you heard correctly, she officially has no gall bladder right now. But Tuesday was good because we had a few appointments and they have a huge teaching pool here.

Then Wednesday we went out teaching some more.  And I love out investigators.  Chelsea and 18 year old girl is fantastic.  She is scheduled to be baptised on feb. 22!!!  I'm so excited.  Then we teach the kiddos.  They are 5 kids who are so smart.  They are really cute and they get it.  Their ages are Becky 14, troy 12, Lucas 11, Patrick 11, and Emily 7.  They are the cutest kids and I love them already.  They are great!
 

Well Thursday we went down to Manchester and Sister Vanderhoef had surgery.  Sam, a member, drove us and it was fun we waited for her to be done and then we took her home.  Since then we have been chilling while Sister Vanderhoef recovers.  It has been very odd.  Every morning I get up and go through the normal routine and then we just stay at our apt.  or go down to the Swains.  We live above their garage.  They are a fantastic missionary minded family.  They are always an example and are so great!  I love them!  And we are at their house quite a bit right now with Sister Vanderhoef not able to do too much. 

We did make it to church on sunday though. We went to sacrament and then we went home because Sister Vanderhoef was feeling very ill.  It was great to meet the members.  It is odd to be in a ward again.  The building is much bigger. 

Other things that I have done this week is quite a bit of cross stitching.  Yes that is correct cross stitching.  I have one that I work on after I've studied.  

So that has been my week.  It had been very good, but odd. :)
 

Love Sister Lundahl

My Last Day in Waldoboro

Yes all,

Today is my last day in Waldoboro Maine.  Also I'm going to deviate from my usual format.  We got the call this Saturday night as 8:20ish.  We came in to work on a project and we were the first call of the night by that assistant.  This is what he said, "Sister Huefner, you are going to remain in the area, and remain as Sister Training Leader. and SIster Lundahl, you are going to leave the area and remain as junior companion. Do you accept this call?"  Yep.  Yes I did accept the call.  But oh my goodness!  I'm leaving Maine!  I know I'm leaving Maine because when we got our travel plans the next day I am going all the way down to transfer meeting which is in New Hampshire.  So if I was staying in Maine they would have told me different travel plans, like, go to your new area here, etc.  Soooo, I'm kinda scared!  Somehow I have pick up a ton! of stuff here in Waldoboro, and I have no idea how to pack it all.  I know it will fit, because I made sure when I came out I had lots of extra space, but still, somehow I have much more, like a coat and jacket, and skirts and stuff.  Just stuff.  I think that I need to downsize, so I will be sending a few things home. :)

 

These past few days have been full of tearful goodbyes.  Last week Brother Duffy said that whoever was leaving would be giving a talk.  Well I had this feeling I would be leaving, but everybody kept saying that Sister Huefner would be leaving, so I joined the bandwagon and said yep, she is.   Well, that's now what happened.  So I had to give a talk.  It was on love, and since I was banking on Sister Huefner leaving, I didn't write anything.  And everytime I tried to write I couldn't.  Nothing  came.  So I wrote Love down on a notecard, wrote a scripture down in my notebook and gave my talk off of that.  Suprisingly, I did not say very many, you knows and what nots.  In fact I didn't say any.  they whole talk just flowed.  I shared a few experiences and then read the scripture a definition of love from true to the faith and bore my testimony.  It was about 8 mins, which filled up perfectly the remaining time.  Yes, I did cry.  Yes, I made many in the congregation cry.  And the rest of my time here, has been full of tears.  not mine.  I said no more after that talk.  but Linda and Arnez were not happy that I was leaving and it was so hard to say goodbye.  Obviously it is not forever, but it is still hard.  I will miss them and being able to teach them. 

 

The exciting news is that Sister Huefner knows who her companion is already.   It is Sister Tait.  She is serving in the next ward over, and we are in the same district!  That is very odd.   It almost never happens that way.  But I think she will be great here.

 

Saying goodbye to everybody else has also been very hard.  I really don't want to leave, but I guess it is my time.  I am going to my third area to a third companion.  That is kinda cool. 

 

Ok so this past week we had MLC so driving we did a lot of.  and we weren't in the area on tuesday.   Then wednesday was the usual stuff-district meeting and we read with Sister Russel and saw Sister Gove.  And then went on exchange with the oxford Sisters.

 

Thursday I was with Sister Smedley and we went and taught Linda and Arnez.  It was a difficult lesson, because we found out that Arnez was smoking this past week.  It was very difficult.  Then, our afternoon apt cancelled so we went and contacted formers and tracted a little bit.   One of the formers we found actually became a new investigator!  So exciting!! Unfortunately, I will not be able to teach her, because I'm leaving :/ But Sister Huefner and Tait will be great.  I'm sure they will be able to help her.  Then we drove over to Auburn to un-exchange with oxford.  :)

 

Friday was weekly planning.  And I was sooo sick.  I got a fever somehow and I had a sore throat.  But I was determined to feel good enough to go and see the seversons.  Well, I'm not sure we should havve, but we went and saw them.  We ate with them, took some pictures, shared a scripture and then headed out.  My fever shot back up when we got home so I went to bed.  That was odd.  But by the next day my fever was gone and I just had a runny nose and typical cold stuff.  It was great.  I am now almost completely better.  It's crazy what a little bit of sleep will do.

 

Then saturday we went and saw Linda and Arnez again.  We taight them about faith.  It went really well.  And we told Arnez that we would do the Stop smoking program with her this week.  And then we went to 2 baptisms!  Yep the elders had 2 baptisms.  It was really cool.  This first one wa at the church and the second one was at a community center!  Yep.  That's because Norm, the guy being baptized is in a wheelchair and can walk a little, but could not take the steps into the font.  So with the approval of the mission president he was baptised in the Wiscassett community center pool.  It was so cool.  definitely not something you usually see.  It was really cool.

Then we we went back to linda and arnez's for dinner.  I guess you could say our last supper. :) Then we got our transfer calls as previously described.  And that has been the week.

 

:)  Oh how it been so crazy!  I can't believe that I am leaving.  And probably going some other state.  I think I am going to New Hampshire next.  But wherever it is I am just too nervous, and stressed about packing and getting everything taken care of that I am kind of a basket case.  It doesn't help that we need to be at the church at 6:10, so leaving our apt at 6 so we can meet the Topsham sisters at 6:50.  That is very early, especially since we usually get up at 6:30.  Oh boy.  I guess I must leave this area.

 

I think this might be my longest e-mail home :)

 

Love always and Forever,

Sister Lundahl

Preparing for the final week (from jan 6, 2014)

Hey everyone!

 

How are y'all?  Things are wet here in the Waldoboro area.  Today the temperature is oddly warm into the 40's which makes us very worried about tonight because we will be driving down to Portland and Manchester and it is supposed to drop in temperature, which means all this rain that we have will be ice and it will not be good.  So hopefully that won't happen.  Anyway, I guess you all what to know what is happening here, and unfortunately not as much as one would hope for.  it has been a bit of a dismal week, but that is not how this week will be.  This week we have MLC and an exchange and transfer calls.  So saturday we will be finding out if one of us is leaving.  Which one of us will be.  And we will get to know a little bit of what will happening. 

 

So monday we had a wonderful FHE with a member in the Branch it was really good and we re-watch the 1st presidency christmas devotional.  because when we tried to watch it at the church the 1st time we couldn't because something was wrong with our projector.  It was really good to be able to watch the full thing. 

  

Tuesday was a very different day. We went and taught a lesson to Linda and Arnez, then went over to the Duffy's where we set up her computer and I was able to watch grandma's funeral.  It was so good.  I loved it!  It was odd to watch, but at the same time really good.  Sister Duffy watched it with us and she loved it as well.  The flowers were very pretty. Afterwards we went back to missionary mode and we went and saw Melanie and did some more service for her.  We were cleaning out some drawers and we found amouse nest, so stopped and left that for her guy to take care of. :) I totally forgot that it was New Years eve so we accidentally crashed a members new years eve party.  They didn't care and actually were really glad that we stopped by.  It was good.  There is a little girl in the family who is about 6 and she came up to us and said, "There is a girl here who doesn't know anything about the gospel would you like to teach her?"  I said of course, but what does she want. So she went and asked the girl there if she wanted to learn.  I think she would have said sure, because nobody can say no to this little girl except for her family, if not for the little girls brother saying not right now.  It was really funny though and super cute. :) 

 

For some reason New Years people still party here, because there were not very many people on the roads.  We drove down to Topsham for district meeting and then we came to damariscotta to teach some lessons.  2 of the 3 were not there. -.-  That is always a bummer, but at least we could go and teach the third lady.  It was quick because we also went to young womens/mens for a new years part thing and had pizza and played games. :)  it was great.  In district meeting we talked about object lessons and we were asked to  bring some.  Do you have any favorite object lessons?  Send them to me so I can use them. :) 

 

Thursday we got grounded.  We had a mission wide shut down on cars.  Which ws silly because where we were we had no snow.  We texted the district leader and then the zone leaders-since Sister Huefner is a STL and can do that and then we waited until our car was ungrounded.  We ventured out for a bit, band then our branch mission leader called us and told us we were grounded at 1.  So we helped Sister Brooks with things.  We put up wall paper and made an accordian door.  It all looks really good.  I've never put up wallpaper before, and I'm not sure I like putting it up.  It is just as messy if not more messy than paint.  But we did it. :)  That was pretty much our day since the weather stopped us from doing our usual missionary work.  :/  Oh well. 

 

Friday we did our weekly planning.  It took a while and then we went to the seversons.  They are so funny.  And sometimes silly.  We always have a good time there, sometimes it is hard to teach them though because they get on tangents so  easily, but we are still working on them.  We then took the precarious drive down to Walpole aka bristol.  -Walpole is like a subdivision of Bristol.  There we had a member meal.  And it was good.  Homemade chicken noodle soup. :)  And homemade bread.  We had dinner with the Hovances and Sister Hovance told us how they met.  Seriously, it would be a perfect movie.  That's all I'm saying.  it would be perfect. 

 

Saturday much of our plans got re-arranged, but eventually we got it all figured out and went to the Royers to do some service.  We helped feed their animals and helped them unfreeze some buckets and things like that.  It was really good.  Not much else exciting happened that day. 

 

Sunday was good and sad.  None of our investigators came due to some unforseen circumstances that came up. :/ so that was really disappointing.  But we got visiting teaching assignments :)  Mainly they are people who they don't know anything about and need to know who they are and they need us to find them.  So that is what we did sunday.  We had a member meal with a family and then found all the people in there area that have been hiding.  One really has been hiding, she hasn't been to church in a really long time and the other family had moved!  Yep.  And they have been on the records for a couple of years and according to the people who live there now they have been there for a while.  So here is my admonition to all of you when you move, move your record please. :)

 

I think that is about all I can say right now.  I love you all and I want you to know that I pray for all of you!

 

Love always and Forever,

Sister Lundahl