The Wonderful Life of Snow

Dear Family,

I love snow.  Yes.  I do  I love it so much.  Until it makes me stay inside and do inside missionary stuff. Because all any missionary wants to do while on a mission is teach.  That is all they ever want to do.  And that is all I want to do, teach and serve.  We did do some service.  We shoveled some people, the only thing is since we are in the boonies, everybody has a plow. or has someone plow.  So we had little to do.  But I'm getting out of order,

Monday we had FHE with the Iacopucci's.  It was a lot of fun because I brought some of the object lessons that dad sent me and they really likes them.  It was cool to see.  

Tuesday we Had some mormon.org time and it was odd because there were some people who had a knitting club meeting at the library, and I realized that the world really is going away from a lot of things just by the manner that they spoke and the things they said.  it was discouraging.  But then we saw one of our members on a computer and she was really sweet.  We also went and taught our investigator Allison.  She remembered everything we taught her the week before and it was really cool to finish teaching her the restoration.  We then had dinner and our apt with our other investigator Chelsea fell through, which was odd.  Then we drove to danbury for exchange.

I went to Hanover again and I was there with Sister Korman our sister Training leader.  We had a fun time teaching all her investigators and being able to share the gospel with them.  They have a bunch of great things going on there.  Unfortunately we had to unexchange back that night because there was a crazy snow storm coming in and it would have been bad if I was stuck in Hanover, fun but not good.  So we exchanged back that night, luckily Sam was able to get the sisters and come all the way over to Hanover about a 2 hour drive.  So that was good, but unfortunately we didn't get home til 10.  But we made it home and it was all really good.  :)  because on 

Thursday I did some things inside.

And friday, valentines day we were still snowed in.  The snow kept coming and coming it was crazy.  So we went and shoveled some people out  and helped the swains with some things for valentines day, like we made the biggest thing of lasagna ever.  I think it rivaled the size of the one at girls camp.  not the taste though.  

Saturday we had coordination with the Ortons.  They are a fantastic family and are so much fun to work with.  We then came home to finish weekly planning. and some other things.

Sunday was fun, the Goodriches came to church.  they are in the mission presidency and Sister Goodrich was telling us some really funny things.  It was great!

So zone conference we did a study thing of something called the fourth missionary.  It explained basically how a missionary should be to be successful and things like that.  It was great.  I loved it!  We also were at the jsm(Joseph Smith Memorial) and it was good to see it again.  It was in the snow, but it was still a beautiful as ever! :)

Well I love you all and hope for the best for all of you!!

Love always and forever,

Sister Lundahl

Temple???

Hello Family and Friends!! 

 

This week the greatest news ever came to our ears, but to let you wait in a little bit of suspense, I will go through the week so Monday you already know about, but we went later to the Orton to have FHE and it was really cool to see how they do it.  What they do is they have a question that they will ask everybody and then share feelings and a lesson and schedules and stuff like that.  It was interesting. 

 

Tuesday we went and taught our new investigator Allison.  She is 12 and the sweetest girl.  We taught her the restoration and used the Apostasy cups to help demonstrate it.  It was cool to see her understand it and then see the importance.  We are going to finish teaching her the restoration this week.  We then went dinner at S. Smith's house.  She is so sweet.  We helped her stack some wood and then she fed us Tia Pad stuff and it was delicious!!  Like really good.  I wanted to eat the whole thing!

 

Wednesday we had a snow day.   It was very sad because Wednesdays are usually the days we get to teach the most. We usually have apts. the whole day so we had to call and cancel all of them and figure out other things to do, like work on our visuals and stuff like that, because sister Vanderhoef still can't do very much lifting.  It was a little difficult.

 

Thursday though was fun because we had district meeting.  And while we were there we were talking and I asked Elder Lund if there was any new announcements from MLC or Mission leadership council.  He didn't really answer, but a little bit later come to find out at MLC they anounced that we can GO TO THE TEMPLE NOW!!!!!!! Every 6 months if we are in certain areas we can go to the temple.  Which is fantastic, because our area can go to the temple so we are trying to go in the next week because there is a possibility that one of us could be transferred. TEMPLE!!!  Side note,  you never really realize how much you love and need the temple until you can't go to one because it is too far.  so all of you at home, I challenge you to go to the temple every week, even to just sit outside and look at it, because it really is great.  And you never know how much you'll miss it until you can't go. 

Anyway, so the rest of that day had us going to a doctor's apt for sister Vanderhoef.  It was good.  Then we went to dinner at the Brignano's house and that was good because we are able to help her our and we showed her a really cool object lesson with 2 copies of the BOM.  What you do is you take them and interlock the pages in big chunks to show reading scriptures occasionally, then in little bits, so when you try to pull them apart in the big chunks it is easy, but small, it is impossible for them to pull you apart.  So when we read our scriptures daily we cannot be pulled from our savior.  We then taught chelsea later that night.

 

Friday, Weekly planning! we finished it all!  And then we went on exchange.  So I was sent to Hanover for the day.  It was fun, because the last time I was in Hanover was at the beginning of my mission and it was really odd to see things that I recognized, and to think that my last area was just 15 miles away.  That is close in new England terms.  It was really cool.  Especially since one of the investigators there knows a family in South Royalton.  That was crazy!

 

Saturday I was still in Hanover, but it was still good because we were able to do 12 week and I was able to see some more ways to use Family History.  We then came home and I had a package.  Full of awesome stuff!  I was so excited!!  Everything has basically already been used to some degree or another.  :)

We then had a meal with a member and it was great.  She is super funny and we always have a good time with her.. It is S. McCarthy.

 

Sunday was great.  We had a goal to get 6 people to sacrament meeting, and boy did we try.  We called people and texted, and stopped by people's houses for preparation, and in the end, one investigator came to church.  It was Chelsea the girl who is getting baptized on the 22.  We were so glad she came because there was a big fishing derby this weekend and we were worried she wouldn't.  But at least she came. :)

We also had dinner with a family named the Ayers and they used to live in Lehi and he worked for PG city.  He also knows the Brocious family!!  It was really fun.

 

So that was pretty much my week. :)

 

Love you all!

 

Love Always and Forever,

SIster Lundahl

Boldness in Laconia!

Hello family!  

How are y'all?  This week in New Hampshire has been one of craziness! It all started tuesday,  we were going out to teach some people and we taught one of our investigators named beverly.  She is a sweet old lady, but she is sharp as a whip, and it is soo cool to talk with her.  She read the Joseph Smith pamphlet and really liked it.  She said that for some reason everything that we were telling her sounded familiar, like she had heard it before.  So we asked her if she would come to church and she said, nope sorry, sunday is family day..... we are working on that.   I mean it is great that it is family day, but really?  no church?  but we have faith that she will come around. Later that night we went to young womens.  We had 2 investigators there.  And we played volleyball.  It was so much fun!  And the youth were fantastic.  It was so cool to be able to work with them and get to know them.  I feel like our investigators are in good hands there.

Wednesday we went out to a town called Belmont.  There we saw some of our less actives.  One was baptised and she really felt that she was clean at baptism, but she was smoking and we asked her if she thinks that is why she had a hard time feeling the spirit at church.  I don't know about you, but that is kindof a bold question to ask someone who is going to another church.  And she answered honestly and said that she would pray this week and ask heavenly father if she needs to come back to the Mormon church.  and she said she would listen with her spirit.  It was really cool. :)  We then had a lesson with the Marcoux kids.  They are a handful.  from 14-7  there are 5 of them, plus whatever friends they decide to have over, so it makes for interesting lessons.  Unfortunately this week was interesting, as one of the boys did not want to listen, which resulted in a fight and things being thrown and us sitting there not knowing what to do.  Well, sam, the member we invited to come with us showed up and saved the day.  It was so good.  Because otherwise we would have been absolutely lost.  we talked about the stripling warriors and how cool they are and things like that, because at that point the spirit wasn't there... but it all worked out.  We then had dinner with some members where we tested out a plan of salvation game that we made.   It was ok.  We need to make some adjustments.  Then we went and saw another less active lady and shared with her the plan of salvation game as well.  Her son came and played and her hasn't been to church for about 6 months, which is a long time especially considering he is only 13.  But it was a good lesson. :)

Thursday we had district meeting, and it was really fun. We talked about the light of Christ and the Holy Ghost.  We had to leave lunch early so that we could go and see a part member family.  And without really meaning to, basically the spirit took over and made us really bold again we asked if her kids wanted to have the lessons.  Her kids started to show up from school and she said well ask them... So we did, and Allison her daughter wants to learn more!  Crazy I know.  It is amazing what boldness can do sometimes. After that we tried to teach a lesson to another less active lady, and let me tell you, some new englanders like to talk.  and if they are professional story tellers, don't expect to get a word in.  She said a lot.  We tried,  and literally had to walk away while we were talking to her so we could leave.  It was crazy!

Friday  Sister Vanderhoef was ill, so we did some planning and watched some more of the church dvds.  And got some free pizza. :)

Saturday we went and taught another less active lady.  Her name is Lauri and she has a great testimony, the only problem is she doesn't live it all the time.  So we are working on her, and our boldness came out again and we just said basically will you stop drinking coffee?  Will you come back to church.  It was bold, and great, and she said she would try. She has some health things and takes some pills that make it hard for her to get up in the morning, but we are going to work with her and help her come back.  We then went out with one of the members in the ward her name is Kayla and she is going to USU this coming year!  She is so much fun!  I love her.  It was great.

Sunday we had church and there was a surprise birthday party for sam, so we helped out with that a little bit and then tried to find S. Vanderhoefs wallet, because it is missing and we had a doctors apt today and thankfully we didn't need it, but we are getting a little desperate.  We've looked everywhere, so prayers for finding that would be great.. Well thats all for the week.  Also if any of you have seen what about bob, We have been to lake winepesakee.  I think I spelled that wrong, oh well.  

Love always and forever,

SIster Lundahl

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