"...come unto me and be baptized in my name...that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day." 3 Nephi 27:20

Hello,

This week has been amazing!! I would first like to start my email off with the most exciting news....drum roll.. we set a date wtih Michele and she is going to be baptized August 13th!!!! I first met Michele the first transfer I was here. She is 14 years old and she is best friends with a youth in the ward. Me and Sister Zwick were trying to meet with her, but I don't think Michele was ready at that point. She went to Salt Lake City and girls camp and I believe through those experiences her desire to be baptized grew. She wanted to meet with us. We set her with a date on the third lesson. I was really nervous to set her with a date. Her legal guardians are her grandparents and we didn't know what they would think. After I set her with a date and asked if she would want to be baptized she had a big smile on her face with a reply of YES! Then we asked her what her grandparents would think and she said that she had already asked them and they approved. It was such a spiritual experience and she knew she wanted to be baptized. Everything is working out perfect for her baptism! I'm so excited that I will be able to be here for it, just in case I get transfered next transfer. I'm so happy for her and now we have about 2 weeks to get in all the lessons before her baptism! We will be busy! I"m very excited!

This week was just full of excitment! We also had Zone Conference this week which is always amazing! My mission president Bulloch is so full of wisdom its amazing! The topic was on Pride and Declaring Repentance. I'm not sure if any of you have read the Beware of Pride talk by Ezra Taft Benson, but it is amazing! I recommend everyone to read that talk. One of my favorite scriptures we read during zone conference was a scripture that Presidnet shared with us in D&C 88:107 and it says "and then shall the angels be crowned wtih the glory of his might and the saints shall be filled with his glory and receive their inhertiance and be made equal with him." I love tihs scripture because it shows us that God is not prideful. He wants us to be equal with him, he does not want to be above us he wants to be equal with him. This shows how much he loves us. He loves us so much he wants us to be just like him. This is such a powerful scripture! Zone conference was great also because I was able to see Elder Hamiliton an Elder that was in my MTC district. It was cool to see how he has grown. In the MTC our district always talked about how we were going to be the one to baptize Jimmer's mom. Well guess where he was transfered to..Glens Falls. (Jimmers hometown) I was very jealous..(o wait that is prideful).. jk haha It was good to see him though! It was like seeing my family again! It was a great Zone Conference I always learn so much!

This week has been SO hot! Walking into a sticky hot oven! haha I'm not use to this humitidy.. I don't like this humid stuff that much. haha We had to ride our bikes on Friday which was one of the hottest days of the week. Luckily we have great members.. one of our less activites came and picked us up and drove us to an area we would work in for the day! It was AWESOME!

So aparantley there is a new Joseph Smith movie coming out. Its all about Joseph Smith getting the plates and there are going to be 2 more movies. Its done by members of the church and they came to a theartre here in Schenectady. The actors were at the movie and I guess they havent' made it out west yet. It looks like a good movie we haven't seen it. Something cool though is the girl that plays Emma was my roommate in the MTC. So when it comes out west you should all see it and tell me how it was.

Well I love you all! I love being a missionary! I love being here in Glenville! Its been a great week!

Love,

Sister Stacey

Pictures from Zone Conference!

The first picture is me and a Less Active girl in the ward that just had her cute baby that I can't hold :(

The Second picture is me and The Mission Presidents wife. She is the best!

The Third Picture is me and all the Sisters at Zone Conference!

One Year Older and Wiser Too!!!!!

Hello,
I would first like to start my email off by saying THANK YOU THANK YOU all for the wonderful Birthday Wishes!!! I had a great birthday as a missionary! Luckily I have awesome members in my ward. Sister Sullivan was the best and made my favorite food and cake! It was so great to spend my Birthday dinner with their family. They are basically my second family here in New York. Also it was great that my birthday landed on a Sunday. Sundays are my favorite day of the week because we get to go to church and be with all the members. Also I guess the bishopric thought it would be fun to let me speak on my Birthday. I gave a talk on prayer and how it can help us grow closer to our Heavenly Father. I was really nervous at first, but it went well. It was a great day! So thank you!
This week has been amazing because it has been full of LOTS of referrals and new investigators. This is the first week into the transfer and having to take over the area is not an easy thing. My prayers lately have been focused a lot on finding new people to teach. Well this week my prayers were answered. We picked up a new investigator and her name is Michele. She has been going to church activities and church with members in our ward for years. She went to girls camp for the first time and loved it and went to her friends and asked if she could meet with us. We went over to their house and had a lesson with her and the members. It went so well and basically if she wanted to be baptized tomorrow she probably could! She was amazing! We hope to meet with her twice a week and get her progressing towards baptism. This just shows how important members are when they get involved with missionary work. When members get involved in missionary work it just helps us full time missionaries help those people progress faster. When members find people the investigators are always way more promising! So I'm really excited about Michele and I hope that we can set her with a date this week!
We picked up a new investigator from some less actives we meet with each week. We're not sure how interested he is, but it was great to see these less actives share what they believe. I think this has helped them get more back into the church. It was great! I have a special love for less actives and right now three of the less actives we meet with have been coming to church every week for the past month. I'm so excited about that! Its been a great thing to see them come and get involved!
We have also received a lot of referrals and we are hoping we can find some more solid investigators out of those referrals. So we will be busy busy this week! I'm excited about that!
Zone conference is tomorrow and I'm very excited! We have Zone Conference every three months so it feels like forever since we last had one. I'm excited to learn and those meetings always refresh me in a way to get back out there and keep trying. It pumps me up and they always remind me of how to constantly be trying. Also this week in District meeting they handed out portable DVD' players so we can study the preach my gospel DVDs. Crazy! Missionaries are being upgraded!
Theresa was going to come to church yesterday, but she slept in and didn't' have enough time to get all her kids to church. We would have went and helped her, but I had to be early to church because I was speaking. She said they even bought new dresses for the girls for church. Next week they will come for sure. Its been great to meet with her and she really enjoys learning about the gospel. I also made a primary CD for the two girls and they love to listen to those songs. We taught them the song popcorn popping and every time we go over there we have to sing it with the actions at least 10 times. haha So things are going good there!
Things really picked up this week and we were busy going from appointment to appointment. Its was a huge blessing for me because this area is basically on my shoulders until sister Belnap can get to know the area better.
Sister Belnap and I are getting along great and we are going to rock this transfer!! I can just feel it! hahaha
Thanks again for all the birthday wishes! I love you all!
I'm happy to be here in Glenville again! I never want to leave it! :)
Love you,
Sister Stacey


These are pictures of when I went to Saratoga a couple weeks ago and some from my Birthday!!!

Saratoga;
Its know for their natural spring water. Some taste better than others
They have all these painted horses all over town
We went to a horse museum and I thought of my sister Catherine
My Birthday

My parents sent the best b-day package so thanks
Dinner at the Sullivan's! They are the best!

Transfers..New Companion!

Hello,

So I'm starting my fourth transfer here in Glenville this week and I'm very excited! I'm happy to still be here in Glenville and I'm in denial of ever leaving it. Sister Despain went home this week and it was sad to say goodbye. My new companion is Sister Belnap she is from Farr West Utah. She does NOT go home in six weeks which I am very thankful for! haha She just came from Syracuse so she will do great on the days we go to Schnectady. It's always a change and adjustment when getting a new companion, but it has been going well. These next couple of weeks will be lots of explaining and teaching sister Belnap about the area.

We have had a struggle lately at finding solid people. So far our most promising investigator is Thresea. We went to see her on Saturday and she had been trying to get her house ready for a showing (she is trying to sell it). The kids had destroyed it, so me and sister Belnap dropped our bags and helped her clean for a couple hours. She was very thankful for it and plus I think it will help us get her to church the next day. We watched the Joseph Smith movie with her and she really enjoyed it and she always has questions. We asked if she would come to church with the kids the next day and she agreed. I offered to come help her get the kids ready in the morning. So sunday morning we drove over to the house and no one would answer the door. Everyone was asleep. So we called the house and Thresea answered and let us in. We had 45 minutes to get everyone ready. While Thresea got ready we helped the kids get ready. We got them all in the car and were 10 minutes late. We barely made it in time for the sacrament. It was so great to have them there and I think she really enjoyed it. Her oldest was nervous to go to class alone so she had to sit in class with him, but she weas able to come to Relief Society. I think the kids loved it and she was saying how she would like to come next Sunday as well. Its stressful getting investigators to church, but we did it and they were happy!

We have been doing really well with less actives. I have a special place in my heart for less activites and I love meeting with them. We have been meeting with a woman, Sister Duval, and she has a son who is 16 years old. They started coming back to church and he got the priesthood on Sunday. She was very proud of her son and it was great to see her at church. She wants to go to the temple so we are going to start teaching her about the temple and get her there! It was so great!

So the Mia Maids in our ward here for their mutal night activity went to New York city to stand outside the today show. Only in New York can you do AMAZING awesome activities like that! I thought that was hilarious that it was a normal activity for them to do! I loved it!

The ward members here are actually starting to pick up on this whole missionary thing. We might have a couple potential investigators this week because of members. So we hope we can find some more investigators that way! I will have to keep you updated with that.

This week will be the first offical week of a new transfer. I'm focusing on making new goals and hoping we can get another baptism! I'm so happy I'm here in Glenville again, it really has become my home! I love it here!

Pictures! (I will send the Saratoga Pictures next week)

Pic 1) These kids sang gospel music to me it was awesome!

pic 2) New York has a lot of beautiful big rivers! I love it!

pic3 ) There is a famous cookie called the halfmoon cookie and I serve in Halfmoon city!

pic 4) A cool bridge!

pic 5) 4th of July!

pic 6) My favorite family! The Herrera Family! Cutest kids ever!

pic 7) I found a license plate with North Carolina and took a pic next to it because thats where my Dad served his mission!

Happy Fourth of July!

Hey,

So I don't have much time today. A member from the ward is taking us to Saratoga Springs for the day! I'm very excited!

This week was full of lots of fun events and random events. My companion went to Palmyra which they do at the end of their mission. So I went on exchanges with Sister Hale. It was her first transfer so it was interesting to be the senior companion. I was actually very proud of myself. We taught a lot of people and we found a great new investigator. We were in the park eating lunch and this lady was standing in front of us with her kids. We started to talk to her and she was so friendly and fun. We got her name and address and me and sister Despain went over to her house later in the week. She is a Jehovahs Whitness, but not really practicing anymore. Her oldest is Autistic and she has two littler girls. It was hard teaching a lesson with them, but we did it and they seemed interesting. We were really excited about that. They came to the ward fourth of July party and I was really happy about that. They really had fun and enjoyed it. Its good to show our investigators that the members are more normal than missionaries. I think some people think all members of the church have the strict rules of a missionary! haha It was so great and I'm really excited about them!

So we thought Scott would be really promising..but we were wrong. He has been acting kind of werid. He was suppose to meet us at the church and we were going to give him a church tour and a lesson but he never showed. We were on bikes and when we got to the church we were so sweaty and gross because we wanted to make it there on time. So it was sad when he didnt' show up. So on sunday we got him a ride to come to church and he came. We were sitting there during sacrament meeting and he had to go to the bathroom. So he left and we never saw him again. We lost him and when we called him he said he left and walked home. That this church just wasn't for him. I think he was nervous to bare his testimony, but he didn't have to. He was the one that found us and had such a great understanding. We were really sad. Were not sure if we are going to keep trying. Well see what happens with that. It was strange and funny at the same time that he just left in the middle of sacrament. haha

Well another transfer is over. I can't believe how fast the time goes. Sister Despain is going home and I'm kind of happy to not be the killer anymore. I have "killed" off two companions in a row. Not very fun! haha My new companion is coming from Syracus. Her name is siter Belnap and thats pretty much all I know. I'm guessing this will be my last transfer in Glenville. I'm very sad about that and I'm secretly hoping I will get to be here for two more transfers! So here I go again taking over the area!

The fourth of July was great! We didn't have to do any tracting which was the best part. We went to the ward breakfast and it was fun to be around members and we had investigators come which was exciting. We went to lunch with melanie and she came teaching with us that afternoon in Schenctady. Fourth of July and downtown Schenectady don't mix very well. When ever I heard a fire work go off...you think its a gun shot. haha scary! That night we went to a members home for dinner and they invited some people over that we might start teaching so it was good. It was a great fourth of July even with out the fireworks..I was in bed by the time those went off!

So I found out that my District Leader is really good friends with an Elder Edwards serving in the Institue in fort collins. So all my friends going to the institue should say hi to him from Elder Matangi (my District Leader). I love connection stories and I love colorado and anyone from there! I thought that was fun!

Well I wish I had more time to write. It was a great week and I'm looking forward for the next transfer. I hope we can find some more solid people to teach. Hope you all had a great fourth of July!

Love

Sister Stacey