Off to New York to serve the Lord.....

Transfer number nine!

2012-02-06T09:52:00.000-08:00

Hello,
Sadly I don't have enough time today to write a long email. We have plans to go hang out with one of our favorite members and go to the zoo. We like to do fun stuff on p-day and Syracuse is the place to do it.

This week has been good. We met with Andrew in the beginning of the week and he hadn't been reading the Book of Mormon and we were sad. We were starting to think that maybe we should postpone his baptism date so that he is ready. I prayed all week that he would just start reading. When we met with him on Saturday he was really excited to tell us that he read. He even underlined verses and had lots of questions. I can't even tell you how happy I was! Prayer works! Sunday was fast and testimony meeting and he got up and bore his testimony. I was a little nervous at first wondering what he was going to say, but he did really well. I'm so proud and were excited for his baptism!

We have also been able to see Sandy a couple times this week, but she didn't come to church which was a bummer. She still wants to get baptized but she needs to show more consistency.

I'm on transfer 9 and I'm so happy to be here in Syracuse again. I'm in love and I never want to leave! Things have been going well and we have just been busy busy.
Hope you all have a great week!

Love from the Cuse,
Sister Stacey

"..be patient in long-suffering and afflictions that ye may show forth good examples unto them in me, and I will make an instrument of thee...."

2012-01-31T09:52:00.000-08:00

"..be patient in long-suffering and afflictions that ye may show forth good examples unto them in me, and I will make an instrument of thee in my hands unto the salvation of many souls." Alma 17:11

This week was a good week. We had our last district meeting of the transfer and it just blows my mind how fast it has gone. Transfer calls were also this week and…..drum roll… I’M STAYING IN THE CUSE! Me and sister Horne will be together again for another transfer and I’m pretty positive this will be my last transfer here in Syracuse which I don’t like to think about. I’m so happy to be here again for 6 more weeks!

We have been meeting with a Less active member who called us a couple months ago and asked if we would come visit her. The other night we were at a members home and her name came up, it turned out that she was the less active members visiting teacher. So we were able to bring Sami the member with us and it was such a great lesson. The less active member was so excited to meet her visiting teacher and she was really excited to come to church on Sunday. Sunday came and she actually came! It was so exciting and she was making friends. It was just as exciting as an investigator coming.

This week has just been filled with a lot of teaching. Andrew and Sandy are doing well. Sandy’s 14 year old son loves coming to church and the activities. It’s been so fun to see! We started teaching this girl from China. She said she knew someone from China who was a member. We were about to start teaching the first lesson and I turn to her and I said what do you know about Jesus Christ or God? … She looks at me and kind of smiles and says…”nothing really”.. Okay.. haha so instead we were able to teach her about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. It was a really cool experience. We had to meet her on campus at the library. It was weird being on a campus again..lets just say I’m happy that I’m here. Haha

Things are going great and I’m so happy I’m here for another transfer!

Love from the Cuse,

Sister Stacey

Picture 1 and 2: Last District Meeting of the Transfer!
Picture 3, 4, and 5: Sister Horne Greeny Dinner!!!! (this one was way hard to eat! so gross! haha

"..behold, said he, I will give up all that i possess, yea, I will forsake my kingdom, that I may receive this great joy." Alma 22:15

2012-01-23T17:14:00.000-08:00

Hello,
This week went by really fast. I was really lucky to be able to hear from my Mission president twice this week. It’s been a great week. First I’ll talk about what’s going on with our investigators. Andrew is doing well, but we need more time to teach him all the lessons. So we're pushing back his baptism date. Sandy wasn’t able to make it to church this past Sunday because her son had to go to the hospital. We were able to go visit her in the Hospital and read from the Book of Mormon with her and that was able to give her great comfort.
On Wednesday we had our district meeting and my Mission President came. It was a great training on how to be effective planners and how it can have a huge impact on our missions and even our lives. Thankfully I was an ok planner before my mission, but I didn’t realize until my mission how much we can actually get done in one day. I had no idea we could accomplish so much in the 24 hours we are given. My mission has shown me how to be an effective planner and to use time wisely!

Also this week we had Return and Report. This is where all trainers and their trainees met back a month later. It was so great and I hadn’t been to one since my Return and Report. We all met and were able to receive some great trainings from our mission president as well as the Assistants. It was so great! Something that I love is that we always read through Alma 17-26. They are like the ultimate missionary chapters! Every time I read through them I find something different. One that I found that I liked and hadn’t seen before was from Alma 22:15. In this verse the King says that he will give up all he possess to know God. He would even give up his own kingdom. As missionaries we need to teach in a way and with the spirit so that when it comes to teaching people about the commandments they will give up anything to be baptized and follow Christ. So I’m trying to teach as Aaron did so I can have those experiences. Another one that I love is in Alma 26:9 Its talking about how if they hadn’t gone to Zarahmela, these people might be strangers to God. Who knows what would have happened if I didn’t come on a mission. Who would have been strangers to God. I’m so glad I came and I’m here!

The meeting was great another thing that I love that I forgot about until I went to this meeting again. He talks about the 4 H’s of missionary work.

1.) Honeymoon: This is when we're at the MTC and life is good. Everyone accepts our invitation to be baptized. No worries!
2.) Horror: This is the first day or transfer in the mission field. You suddenly realize this is hard work.
3.) Humor: You just have to find humor and laugh about things. When someone slams the door in our face we just need to laugh about it.
4.) Home: When we finally feel at home in the mission field

It was interesting to hear these again because the first time I heard them I was feeling the Horror stage as I just entered the mission field. When we were going over these I could honestly say that I feel at home here in New York especially here in Syracuse. This place has become my home and these people have become my family. I love them so much and I never want to leave!

Hope you have a great week!

Love from the Cuse,
Sister Stacey

Pic 1: Sister Pitts and I were in the MTC together and here we are together again at our 2nd return and report with our traniees

pic 2: Sister Horne and I at Return and Report

pic 3: All the new missionaries and their trainers!

Snow in Syracuse! Finally!

2012-01-17T19:47:00.000-08:00

Hello,
It was another great week here in Syracuse we taught 19 lessons and again I'm always so tired! I guess it's all part of the experience. Andrew is doing really good and we are still planning his baptism for the 28th. We have been doing really well at bringing different members to his lessons so he can get to know more people. Things have been going really well!
Also this Sunday Dwight got the priesthood and we slipped into priesthood so I could hear the blessing. I feel like he is my child all grown up and moving on all on his own. haha It was really exciting to be there and he was so happy and it's just amazing to hear those blessings. I know that Heavenly Father is so aware of each and every one of us. I love the priesthood some of the stuff said in the Blessing I knew that the person giving the blessing would have not known some of the stuff Dwight has gone through. The power of the priesthood is seriously amazing! I love it so much! Dwight also started his Family History this week because he is going to the temple this weekend. I"m so excited! When I see my recent converts make it to the temple that's when its all worth it. That's when I can forget about those hard days and realize that this is what its all about. I'll never forget it.
We have been teaching Samantha the 11 year old. Her other brother is a member and she really wants to get baptized. We want to make sure she is committed. Our lessons are awesome though we try to always include a visual. Its always so fun to teach her it makes me excited to be a teacher.
It finally snowed and WOW is it cold or what. I'm not use to the humidity cold and it really gets to you. The first real snow storm, and it didn't hit till the end of January. Its kind of funny and people here are freaking out that the first storm is now.
Well I don't have too much time. Things are going well! I love being here! Sister Horne and I are doing well and teaching lots!

Love from Syracuse,

Sister Stacey

Pictures: Ice Skating again! Were obsessed!
It finally snowed, but now its really cold!

"...They had searched the scriptures diligently that they might know the word of God" Alma 17:2

2012-01-10T11:23:00.000-08:00

Hello,
I hope everyone had a great week! Our week wasn't as amazing as last week, but we are working hard. Tuesday we only taught one lesson and we just kept trying people all day long. No one was home, but we did find some potentials. We had a great lesson with one of our investigators Andrew. He is 19 and is living at a members home right now. We were trying to figure out who to bring to the lesson and thought of Ana, this girl we meet with, she is 18 and is less active. We called her and asked if she would ever like to come teaching with us. She said she would love to. So we went and picked her up and took her to the lesson with us. I really think the spirit inspires who we should bring if we really listen to the spirit. The lesson went so perfect and Ana was able to share a really spiritual experience. It really helped our investigator. I think afterwards she was really happy she came and she had an opportunity to share her testimony which she probably doesn't get the chance to do. I like taking Less actives to lessons with me because it helps them remember why they joined the church in the first place. It was such a great experience I don't know if it was better for Ana or our investigator. haha I'm so happy we brought her.
We also had a great lesson with Sandy one of our investigators. She has piercings and stuff and we were nervous to talk to her about it. Then we went to a lesson with her and she flat out asked us "ok what can I do and what can't I do, can I have these piercings?" We explained things a little bit and she was like ok I'll take it out. Its amazing to see how faithful people are to the Lord and his commandments. It was a great experiences for Sister Horne and I.
Well from what I have heard around here Syracuse is the number one snow city in America and it has maybe snowed like 3 times. Its so strange and everyone around here keeps telling us to "just wait!" So well see if we get to see a crazy winter. Hey I'm not complaining.. snow isn't a missionaries best friend.
I have been reading in Alma and I really like the verses in chapter 17 verse 2&3. Its talking about how the sons of Mosiah and Alma study the scriptures diligently and after they study they are led by the spirit to teach people. This can apply to missionaries, but to all of you as well. If you study the Book of Mormon and know it well when you are asked questions about it the Spirit will help you answer those questions. The spirit will guide you in what you can say. This is something I have learned as a missionary. The more I'm familiar with the Book of Mormon the more I can help people and address their concerns by using the Book of Mormon. It can be so powerful!
I hope you all have a great week!
Love from Syracuse,
Sister Stacey

Picture: I know its so weird but I LOVE the grave yards here! This is a tombstone.. its so big!

"LOOK NOT BEHIND THEE" - Genesis 19:17

2012-01-02T15:30:00.000-08:00

ITS A NEW YEAR!

I hope everyone had a great new years eve! I totally forgot it was New Years eve until one of our last appointments someone mentioned it to us. We got home that night and I was so tired I could care less about waiting up for the new year. I was sooo happy to go to bed by 10:30. (haha)
This week was so amazing! On new years day I was lucky enough to give a talk in church. I gave a talk on re-newing our faith. I think it went well and on Sunday we got 4 of our investigators at church it was amazing. It was crazy trying to get them around to classes. I'm not sure why, but we are just doing so awesome. We set two of our investigators with a baptism date this week. We had a member referral for this 19 year old boy. He had been coming to church with some members and he came up to us and asked if he could learn more. It was way exciting. The lessons have been going really good with him and he really agrees with everything. So we set him for the end of January. We also saw Sandy this week. (I think I talked about her last week.) We set her with a date and she was really excited about that. So this month is going to be crazy!
We taught 20 lessons this week and I'm exhausted, I have never been so tired in my ENTIRE LIFE! Its for a good cause though and I know the Lord is pleased. My mission president always tells us that the numbers always go down after we talk to our families. (NOT I) I wanted to prove him wrong and I think we did! haha
Training has been going great. I love Sister Horne! We get along great and she came out ready to work and she has been fitting in really well. We practice a lot and she has been doing so well in lessons. We also started teaching a members little sister. She is 11 years old so we have been working hard to make fun visuals for her lessons. (good thing I'm an elementary school major) She is really excited to learn so she might be getting baptized at the end of the month as well. Things have just been doing so well and I'm absolutely in LOVE with Syracuse and I basically never want to leave!
We heard some great talks yesterday about the starting of the New Year. I talked about Nephi and his faith and how sometimes we are more like Laman and Lemuel. We see miracles in our lives and then later on forget and lose faith. We should all try this year to have the faith of Nephi and be able to say "I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded." One of my favorite videos on mormon.org is one about the story of Lot and how they were leaving the wicked city. (mormon messages) They had one rule and that was to NOT look back, but thats exactly what his wife did and she turned into a pillar of salt. Some of the things they say in the video is to not look behind us. Lot's wife didn't even consider that her future could be better than her past. To not dwell on the past, but look forward. You can't go back so you might as well live forward in the best way that you can. Anybody can choose to leave the past behind and movie forward! I hope you all have a great new year!

Love you,
Sister stacey

Pictures: I forgot to put these up over xmas time.. late pictures

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

2011-12-26T12:23:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas,

This week was a crazy week, but awesome! I hope everyone had a great Christmas! I had a wonderful Christmas. My week started off with saying goodbye to Sister Gifford and receiving my new “Greenie.” We drove to Utica and picked her up and it was the first time I had been to the new missionary meeting since I first got here. I tried to remember how I felt that first day I got there. (A little overwhelmed!) My new companion’s name is Sister Horne and she is from Centerville Utah. We got in our car and drove back to Syracuse. We didn’t even have time to drop her stuff off at the apartment and went straight into teaching. We had lessons all night which was way fun. Pretty much that has been each day since she has got here. We have been blessed to teach so much. I have been taking her around the "Cuse" and she has realized it is a lot different from Utah. We have had fun and Its been a learning process for both of us. I hope that I can do my best to teach and lead by example. We have been doing great so far! A lady (Sandy) that volunteers with us at the food pantry came up to us a couple weeks ago and told us that when she lived in California when she was younger she went to seminary with her friend. She said she really wants to get back in church and wants her kids to have that. We went and taught her on Saturday and she asked us what she needs to do to be baptized. It was one of those moments when me and sister Horne slowly looked at each other with our mouths opened. Haha We were like well..we teach you..hahah Afterwards Sister Horne turned to me and said “does that happen often?” I said “NO! But that was AWESOME!” We have been truly blessed with the work!

Christmas day was so perfect and I really coulnd’t have asked for anything different. We woke up and opened presents. (Mom spoiled me!) She is so awesome and it was way fun to open presents. Sunday was so great! We got to church and Sandy and her son made it. She was happy to be there and so were we. I also saw Bob which was a former investigator who had dropped us. He came with his son and it was so great to see him there! I told him if anything changes he has our number. Also a recent convert that we meet with came to church with her husband who is Jehovah's witness. I was so happy to see him I thought he would never want to come. We also picked up two potentials at church. It was seriously the best Christmas present anyone could ask for. Seriously Christmas miracle. I think I looked really stupid during church because I could NOT stop smiling. It was so funny! I was so happy that so many people came! I’m just so happy right now! We are going to be teaching a lot of great people right now and life is just good. I’m sure my companion thinks I’m so weird. She just doesn’t know whats going on cause she just got here so I had to fill her in on why I was so happy!

Some members had us over for Lunch and dinner and it was such a great Christmas. It was also very exciting to talk to my family. I was a little nervous at first to talk to them because I didn’t want to get out of the funk of not talking to them for so long. It went well and it was great to here from them, but my head is back in the game and I’m ready to get to work!

It was seriously the best Christmas ever and I’m so happy that I was here for it! Christmas miracles for sure! I hope you all had a great Christmas! I love you all so much! Have a very happy New Year!

Love,

Sister Stacey

Pictures: The sisters at Transfer Meeting and our new trainiee's
Christmas Morning opening presents!
Christmas Dinner! So fun!

"For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." Luke 2:11

2011-12-20T06:55:00.000-08:00

Hello,

This week was a great week! Its our last full week together. We got transfer calls on Saturday and Sister Gifford will be going to Bennington Vermont and I will be training. Yes I will be training and I'm a little nervous for it, but I know that it will be a great growing opportunity for me. I'm excited Syracuse will be a great place for her to start her mission. I have been working hard so she has some great people to work with when she gets here. It will be hard for her to start her mission right before Christmas so I'm going to try my hardest to make sure she has the best Christmas ever! We will have a lot of fun! We have had a pretty tight group here in Syracuse the Elders and us, but it has come and we are all leaving. Its been so much fun! Change is always hard, but we can never grow if we don't experience change. I know it will be a good thing.

Kind of a cute story this week. On Saturday we were pretty booked with a lot of lessons and we get a call from Edwin. He wanted us to come over and teach him. We asked him if something was wrong with the appointment we scheduled with him on Tuesday. He said nothing was wrong he was just reading in Mosiah about service (which we just gave me a lesson on it to him) and he wanted us to come over and read some more with him. He thought of us. It was such a cute experience. He is doing so great!

We are struggling with getting people to church, but we finally got one of our investigators to church. We have set her with a date for January so we hope she sticks through it. We have been praying a lot to find and I know that God answers prayers.

I'm excited for this week and to experience my first Christmas as a missionary. I am actually really excited and I know it will be a great one. I love this Christmas season and to be able to think more about our Saviour. I love Mosiah chapter 2 that talks about service. That when we are in the Service of our fellow beings we are only in the Service of God. I hope we can all think about that over this Christmas season. To serve others because that is what God wants and that's what makes him most happy! I'm so grateful for this opportunity to Serve him always!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas! I'm excited to talk to my family it will be great!

I love you all

Merry Christmas

Love Sister Stacey

Pictures: We went to a gingerbread museum and ice skating with one of our investigators and the Elders. It was so much fun! Our last District picture we will all be changing this next transfer!

"she brought forth the firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.." Luke 2:7

2011-12-13T18:40:00.000-08:00

Hello,
I don't have to much to write about. This week we didn't teach that much because we are trying to find find find! We found a lot of cool people and we are excited to start teaching them in the coming weeks. We volunteer at a local church and help pass out clothes. This lady we work with started talking to us about how when she lived in California when she was younger she would go to seminary and mutual activities with her mormon friend. She is looking for a church for her family and would like to come. She had been under our nose this whole time. We aren't allowed to proselyte when we are on other church property so it was so coool to have her open up and talk to us. The Lord is so aware of us because we have been praying a lot to find new people.
There is a funny story and I probably shouldn't tell it because it might freak my mom out. We were trying some people that Sisters have taught in the past. We knocked on this one door and this guy answered and we asked if Tristian was home. The guy told us that he went to prison that week. (eeekkkk) Well because I have a funny sense of humor I said "O darn we should have come earlier!" The guy thought it was funny. This just kind of shows the area's we are in all day. haha It was really cool because we ended up having a 20 minute conversation on the doorstep with the guy who answered the door. We gave him a Book of Mormon and we are going to try him this week. It ended up begin a really cool experience!
So I have been in the Syracuse ward for almost 4 months and I have never seen someone do a musical number. (this ward isn't very musical) So I thought it would be a good way to get our investigators to church if I sang. Well of course I got sick again right before, but come Sunday when I got up to sing my voice worked perfectly. I really enjoy singing. Sadly we didn't get any of our investigators to come, but the Elders had some and the ward loved it. The members came up to me and were like "where did that come from?" The teenager boys came up and asked me for my autograph it was funny. haha I really do enjoy singing and the ward hasn't had that so it was a great experience. I hope I touched someone and helped strengthen their testimony. I know every time I sing about Christ it always strengthens mine.
I love this Christmas holiday and I love being here in New York for the xmas holiday! We had the ward christmas party this weekend and its just so good to all get together and focus on the Savior.
Hope you all have a Merry Christmas!
Love,
Sister Stacey

Picture: I love New York and the overacast City of Syracuse!
Picture: We went to a members home for dinner and they live on a farm! It made me miss my little sister! So I took this picture for her!

"..Therefore, the Lord himself shall give you a sign..Behold a virgin shall conceive, and shall bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." 2 Nephi

2011-12-06T15:54:00.000-08:00

"..Therefore, the Lord himself shall give you a sign..Behold a virgin shall conceive, and shall bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." 2 Nephi 17:14

Merry Christmas,

I can’t believe it is December already, I’m very excited for the Christmas season! People already have their lights up and the season has already started. I'm excited to experience a Christmas as a missionary. I loved the Christmas Devotional last night. Christmas season is about Christ. The best gift I could give to him his to share his gospel and bring more of his sheep to the fold. I'm so happy I get to be here and I know this will be a great Christmas.
This week was a great week. We had Zone Conference which was amazing. My mission president talked all about the Book of Mormon. It was so amazing! We talked about how we need to use the Book of Mormon more in our missionary work. I have come to love the Book of Mormon. I didn’t know it very well before my mission. I’m so grateful for my mission because I have come to know the Book of Mormon and appreciate it so much more in my life. I have realized that it’s here to guide us along our personal paths in life. It’s there to give us comfort and direction. I love the Book of Mormon. We talked about how everything is determined on the Book of Mormon and no matter what anyone is going through the book of Mormon has answers!
Edwin went to the Temple this weekend and we saw him on Sunday. He was literally glowing he was so happy. He said it was the Holiest experience of his life. He got up and bore his testimony of the temple and it was just so powerful. He was able to be baptized for his son who was killed years ago in New York City. He was so happy! I love this gospel! The Gospel of Jesus Christ really brings happiness. I’m so happy for Edwin and it’s so great to be able to see him make this great progress in the Gospel. I love the Temple and I can’t wait to go this summer! Testimony meeting in the Syracuse ward is seriously amazing! It blows me away and strengthens my testimony each time I attend. Half the ward is converts and to hear them share their testimony is so powerful! The gospel can really change lives. The gospel has the power to do anything and I have seen that on my mission. It’s amazing!

I hope you all have a great week! I love my mission and I love the Book of Mormon!

Love,

Sister Stacey

Pictures:

Pic 1: In downtown Syracuse they have a huge Christmas tree decorated and Ice skating! Its so much fun!

Pic 2: We went to the mall here. Its the 6th largest in America. They had a carousal in it! so fun!
Pic 3: Our little Christmas tree! So fun!

"We see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in...his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy....

2011-11-29T09:33:00.000-08:00

"We see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in...his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever Amen." Alma 26:37

Hello,

This week was a great week! Thanksgiving was a wonderful day and I will remember this Thanksgiving forever. We woke up to a text from one of our investigators and he said that as he was reading the book of Mormon God spoke to him. We weren’t sure what he meant so we asked him to explain. He said that as he was reading he just felt at peace. We were so happy that he finally felt the spirit as he was reading. He said he wanted to come to church Sunday! We were so happy!

So we had our first thanksgiving meal with Ryla one of our investigators. We went with her mom and son to their friends home in Fayetteville. When we got there everyone welcomed us to their little family. They were all very nice! They of course were asking lots of questions which we didn’t mind at all. We ended up getting a women's name and address. She said we could stop by sometime. So that was exciting! We had a very traditional thanksgiving dinner which made me happy! Me and sister Gifford were really careful to watch our portions because we knew we would be going to another dinner. We thought we would be eating our first dinner at 3 so it would give us time to get ready for the next one, but they ended up eating later like 4:30. So we were a little worried. We left and headed to our next thanksgiving appointment. Round two was with some members in the ward. When we got there the Elders were already there and you could tell by the look on their faces they were just as full as us. They had also come from another appointment. The members kept bringing out more and more food. I was getting worried. So we all sat down to eat and they tell us that we pass our plates around and dish each other’s plate so I had no control over what they put on my plate. Sadly the dinner was so painful I was trying so hard to finish, but towards the end every bite I took I thought I might throw up. Haha I was looking at the Elders across the table and they were going through the same thing. I thought they were going to fall over. It was pretty funny! There is a saying .."there is always room for dessert” NO…there isn’t! I couldn’t even eat the pie and I love pie. It was painful! It was fun though and it was a great Thanksgiving! After we left I told sister Gifford I never want to eat food ever again! The next morning was probably the hardest it has ever been for me to get up. We didn’t eat the whole next day. Let’s just say it was a memorable day! I love Thanksgiving and it was one that I will always remember!

We had a cool experience this week we were looking up former investigators. We knocked on this door and the person we were looking for wasn’t home but her mother was. She was so nice and let us in and we started teaching her the first lesson. She was telling us all these things about how hard life has been with her granddaughter and family members dying. She even told us that she has been wanting to do family history. One right after another we didn’t know where to start we had so many answers to her questions. It was kind of funny! We were so happy that the Lord had led us to her. We have been praying to find some new investigators. We made sure to say a prayer after the lesson to thank the Lord for lettings us find her. We can’t wait to teach her again! I love missionary work!

This week was a great week and I did think of my family at home in Estes, but I’m so happy that I was here in New York for Thanksgiving. Its amazing how these people I just met 3 months ago welcome us into their lives and in their homes. These experiences will only happen on my mission. I’m so happy that I’m here!

Love Sister Stacey

"..Behold, here are the waters of Mormon and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people..." Mosiah 18:8

2011-11-22T10:42:00.000-08:00

Hello,
This week was a great week. We have always had a baptism date with one of our investigators Dwight, but we kept moving it back. He came to Stake Conference which was good and he later told us that he broke down and started crying. He said that was very unusual for him. We explained to him that it was the Spirit. Dwight has had some awesome experiences with the Spirit. We met with him on Monday with our ward mission leader and the lesson was amazing! It was perfect and just what Dwight needed to hear. My ward mission leader is seriously amazing and his testimony is so powerful. He was a convert and dealt with some of the same struggles as Dwight did. Basically he asked Dwight do you believe this Book is True and he said yes. Do you believe that Joseph Smith is a prophet and he said how else would he be able to translate the gold plates so yes! He wants to be baptized, so Monday night we decided he would get baptized Saturday. So we planned the baptism in 4 days and called everyone who had taught with us and planned the whole baptism. It was crazy, but everything worked out. The baptism was Saturday night and it was so great! He was so happy he showed up early. He looked so happy and he was so surprised that so many people came to support him. He didn't realize how many people cared about him and wanted to be there for him at his baptism. He doesn't have any family or friends here so we have become his new "ward" family! He was so happy and everyone who was part of teaching him was able to participate in some way. Dwight is such a humble man and I'm so happy that we were able to teach him. He got up at the end of the baptism and said a couple words. He said "I thank the sister missionaries and I wouldn't have made it this far without them. They are great missionaries!" It was the sweetest thing! I'm so happy that I'm here on a mission and I was able to help Dwight along his path to return to his Heavenly Father.
On Friday we were able to help one of our investigators paint her Kitchen and it was really fun. It was great because we were able to talk and she really opened up to us about what she wants from us as missionaries and how knowing about Jesus Christ can benefit her life. It was a great opportunity to be with her. We had a lesson and after the lesson her son wanted to be apart of the prayer and he came over and sat with us. It was so cool! The hardest part is getting investigators to church... JUST COME!! haha So we are working on that with most of our investigators!
Its been a great week and I don't have too much time! I hope everyone will have a very Happy Thanksgiving!
I'm so thankful for this opportunity to be here in New York and bring people closer to Jesus Christ. I'm so Thankful for a family that Loves me and supports me in my decisions. I'm thankful for wonderful friends who write me (hint! haha) and are always there to support me! I'm so thankful for the Book of Mormon that I know I can be with my family forever and it can help get through anything. I'm so thankful for a Heavenly Father who loves me and knows what's best for me. I'm so Thankful for the spirit that guides me along and helps me through. I'm so thankful to be on earth at this time! There is so much more that I could write down, but I'm truly thankful for everything! I love you all and I hope you have a great Thanksgiving day!
Love,
Sister Stacey

Transfer #7...Half Way!!! ahh!!!

2011-11-15T06:02:00.000-08:00

Hello,
I don't have very much time so I can't write too much. This week was kind of a slow week which is normal for missionary work. I did hit my half way mark this week on the 9th which was really weird. It feels like yesterday when I was driving to my first area. Time is really weird as a missionary some days feel like a week long and some weeks feel like a day long. I have so much more to improve on and still have 9 months to make it the best. Also on Saturday a year ago I opened my mission papers. I'll never forget that day as long as I live. I remember being nervous and excited at the same time. I'm so happy that I'm here in New York and I know this is where I'm suppose to be.
This week we had Stake Conference and our mission president and his wife spoke and it was fun to hear from them. We taught a lesson afterwards with one of our investigators. He has been out of town so we haven't been able to see him for a couple weeks. When we saw him he said that he still hasn't read and if he isn't that motivated to read then he must not be interested to learn more. We had planned to teach something else, but the spirit took over the lesson and we went a different direction and it went so great. We talked about prayer and I happened to mention a story that was told at stake conference about a man who lost his job and was looking for work. Our investigator opened up and said that he was looking for a job and he had a reason to pray. We gave him some scriptures to read that would help him, but he really seemed like he was going to do his reading! It was such a great lesson and I'm just glad that the Spirit was there. It was a great lesson and I'm so grateful for the Spirit guiding that lesson!
On Friday we got a call that a train by our apartment had fallen off the track and one of the carts was filled with propane. So we were evacuated from our apartment for awhile. They shut down the highway and we couldn't get anywhere. It also happened to be on the same night of the football game. It was pretty crazy, but we ended up making it back to our apartment. The propane didn't spill so we got to go back to our place for the night. It was a crazy day!
I'm so happy that i'm here in New York serving the Lord! I'm happy that me and Sister Gifford are here in Syracuse for another transfer!

Love you all,
Sister Stacey

Pictures:
Fall is coming to an end..but this is what Fall looks like in New York!

"...whoso repenteth and is baptized in my name shall be filled..if he endureth to the end..him will I hold guiltless before my Father....

2011-11-08T16:23:00.000-08:00

"...whoso repenteth and is baptized in my name shall be filled..if he endureth to the end..him will I hold guiltless before my Father..when I shall stand to judge the world.." 3 Nephi 27:16

Hello,
This was another great week and it was extra special because Edwin got baptized! Edwin's baptism went so well and he was seriously so excited. When we saw him at the baptism his smile would not leave his face. He kept saying "I'm psyched out!" It was so cute. The baptism went really well and his wife who is a baptist minister came. He was so happy to have her there! After the baptism he said he felt clean. Sister Gifford asked him what he was going to do now and he said "I'm going to follow the Lord!' He is just awesome! The next day was fast Sunday and he got up and bore his testimony. It was powerful. I even saw him give the Bishop his first tithing. Its amazing to see the faith of these new converts. During sacrament meeting yesterday the 1st counselor in the bishopric got up and said that in the Syracuse ward they have had 18 baptisms this year and its the most they have had since 2002. This area is a blessed area! Edwin is so happy and I'm so glad that I could be apart of the process of him being baptized!
On Saturday we called one of our investigators to invite her to the baptism, but she said she couldn't walk because of her knee. She was in a lot of pain so we offered to let the Elders give her a blessing. She said that would be ok. So we went over with the Elders and a member and the member asked her which person she wanted to anoint and which one she want to have give the blessing. She turned to us and said "I want my lovely sisters to do it!" haha We had to explain to her why we couldnt' do it. She was very grateful for the blessing though. I'm so grateful for the priesthood. Every time these 19 year old missionaries give a blessing it just amazes me. You know its really by the power of God these Elders know what to say and do. I love the priesthood!
So this week has been really stressful because we knew that the call would come this week and tell us if we were staying or going. We call them transfer calls. Well the phone call came and we found out that we are both staying here in Syracuse! Sister Gifford and Sister Stacey going on three transfers together in the Cuse! We are both really excited about that! I'm excited because that means I will also probably be here in Syracuse till February! We got two new sisters this transfer. One of them was Sister Love who was the sister in the car accident with Sister Bentley. She is seriously my hero and is such a great example to me. She was only gone for one transfer recovering, but she is back. The best part is that she went to Glenville my last area. So I'm excited and she will love it here. She is amazing that she still wants to come back and serve. She is truly amazing! We also found out that a new Sister area opened and that is Lake Placid which is in the North Country and that is where the Olympics were. So I really would love to go there sometime in the future. It was a pretty exciting transfer call!
We had dinner with this single older women this week and neither of us knew who she was. We went to her house and we were eating and she told us that she has been less active for over 30 years and wants to come back. She asked us if we could come to her house once a week and she will feed us if we would re-teach her all the lessons again. I think my jaw dropped a little bit.. haha I was like..um.. YES!!! haha It was so cool and were excited to get her back to church!
It was such a great week! I'm so happy that I get to be here in Syracuse for another transfer! I love it here and I love being a missionary! I love being able to be apart of these people's lives and be with them as they progress closer to Jesus Chirst!

Love you all,
Sister Stacey

pic 1: Edwin's Baptism. Edwin is the one next to me
pic 2: Edwin Baptism
Pic 3: District Meeting!
pic 4: District meeting
pic 5: Distirct meeting goofy

Happy Halloween!

2011-11-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

Hello,
This week was another great week. Last Monday night we had Family Night with the singles branch. The missionaries are in charge the 4th Monday of every month. We thought it would be fun to carve pumpkins. So we had some fun carving pumpkins and getting to know some of the members in the singles branch. It was a lot of fun!
This week Edwin had his interview and passed so we are planning on having his baptism this Saturday. We are pretty excited. Edwin went to the Pageant in Palmyra and the missionaries talked to him there and then that's how we started teaching him. He is such a great example to me in his efforts to do all the right things. He finished the Book of Mormon and we gave him Doctrine and Covenants and he has already started reading that. He asked us if we had anymore reading material about the church, that he wants to read everything. haha We started laughing and then explained to him about a church library. He was excited to learn about that. So he happens to be married to a baptist minister..yes! So we were telling him about the adversary and how he should watch out for anti stuff. He said that his wife's friend will drill him with Anti and that he will pull out scriptures from the Book of Mormon. haha He said don't worry about that.. he pointed to his heart and told us that there is no way anyone can change the feelings he has. No one can change his testimony. Its amazing to see how much he has grown and changed. Its amazing how powerful the atonement can be.
This week at District meeting we learned a lot about family history and how we can use this as a tool to find more people. I haven't really thought about this, but I'm excited to start to use it. I didn't think us missionaries needed to worry about it because we won't get to go to the temple, but after that amazing talk by Elder Bednar on the Spirit of Elijah I can see now how it applies so much to missionary work!
One of our investigators who is single branch age came to church yesterday. Before church we had a lesson with her on the Plan of Salvation. Then during sacrament the talks referred back to the lesson we just had. It was so perfect! I'm so thankful for the spirit because I for sure did not plan that! She really enjoyed it and she is excited to come next week. Out of all the people I have met with she has been the most prepared by the Spirit for this restored gospel. Its been an amazing experience teaching her! Its awesome!
We had our ward Halloween party on Saturday and it turned out great! We had two of our investigators come. They loved the idea of trunk or treat. Lots of people came and it was a great turn out. Me and Sister Gifford sort of dressed up as much as we could as missionaries. It was a lot of fun and I think the kids loved it!
It was a great week! I don't have too much time so I didn't have much to write. I hope everyone has a Happy Halloween!
Love you,
Sister Stacey

pic 1: Pumpkin Carving with the Singles Branch

pic2: Our awesome Pumpkin! My only Halloween as a missionary.. I had to carve a church pumpkin!

pic 3: Our awesome Trunk! Yay!

Pic 4: Me and our investigator. Her dad is Less active

pic 5: The Elders and Us at the trunk or treat!

pic 6: I had to take a picture with me and the Angry Bird only because I thought of my family. We love angry birds!

"....The Holy Spirit of God did come down from heaven and did enter into their hearts..they were filled as if with fire.." Helaman 5:45

2011-10-25T09:46:00.000-07:00

Hello,
This week was another great week. On Tuesday I had a great experience that I will always remember. A member in the ward is good friends with a professor at a local community college. Each semester she has missionaries come in so that her students can ask questions. Its an Anthropology class and they did a section on mormons. So six of us missionaries went into a class room. We walked in and they had all these chairs set up in the front of the room. I felt like we were on exhibit.. It was the coolest experience to be able to answer there questions and show them that were just normal people like they are. I thought they were going to ask deep doctrine questions because thats what I'm use to as a missionary, but they just wanted to know about us and why we chose to be a missionary. We were all able to introduce ourselves and tell them where we are from and what we did before our missions. At the end of introductions a girl in the class raised her hand and said "I noticed that each of you said something about how happy your are..why are you all so happy?" A big smile went on my face because I know that I was happy because I have the restored gospel in my life. My companion did a great job at answer her question. The member that came with us told us that if we didn't know how to answer a question to just look at him and he would take over. Well of course the questions came up about polygamy and homo-sexuality and all of our heads turned to the member.. It was funny! They were all so amazed that we had taken this time out of our lives to come share this message. They seriously could not believe that we only talked to our families twice a year on the phone. I for sure cracked some jokes and brought some humor in answering some questions. It was so important to me that they saw that we are normal and we can have fun as well. I'm so happy that I had that experience and the chance to show them that. The spirit was definitely there and all of them took Book of Mormons afterwards. Not sure if anything will come of it, but we did plant some seeds. Now they know that mormons dont' have multiple wives..that's good enough for me. haha
We got a referral from Mormon.org from a girl named Melissa. We called her and she was really exicted to meet with us. We met with her on Thursday and she is basically amazing! She has cousins and an Uncle who are members living in Utah. She said she has really liked the way they lived and could tell a difference in their home. They gave her a book of mormon and the link to General Conference. She was basically describing the spirit when she telling us about when she watched General Conference. She said that when she goes to the Catholic Church she just feels like something is missing. She can't wait to come to church and read the book of mormon. These lessons are not normal and I usually don't like putting the title of "Golden" but she was pretty close to that. Sadly she is moving next month to Texas to join the Air Force. So we will teach her as much as we can before she goes and maybe she can connect with the missionaries there. I love that about the church. You can go to church anywhere you go in the world! Its amazing!
We had a great lesson with our investigators who are form China. Those lesson are seriously so awesome. They take a bit longer because we have to explain about Christ and Heavenly Father. Its really a great experience. Imagine what you would tell someone who doesn't know anything about Jesus Christ. What would you say? Where would you start? Its a very hard thing to do because there is to much. So we have to take a step back and start wtih square one..Christ and heavenly father. At the end of the lesson we asked one of themto say the prayer.. she paused and said "Does God speak Chinese?" We all started laughing.. it was fun!
We got an investigator to the singles branch which is the first time since I've been here. That was exciting and I think he enjoyed it. We had a lesson afterwards with some members and we taught the Plan of Salvation. Everytime I teach that it just confirms to me that this church is so true. God loves us so much that he created this great plan for us. We also taught this young mother yesterady. She was so spiritual and I could tell she is searching. She has two cute little kids and they reminded me of my cute niece and nephew. I want them to have the restored gospel. I can't wait for her to come to church next week. We have 18 investigators now and its really hard to manage them all. We have been super busy which is great! Teaching lots and thats what I love most!
Things here in the cuse are great! I love missionary work!
Love you all,
Sister Stacey

"Behold a Royal Army"

2011-10-18T16:14:00.000-07:00

Hello,

This week was another great week! We started the week off with a great p-day, we went to the Zoo which was so much fun! My companion woke up Tuesday with this really bad tooth ache and it wouldn't go away. We happened to be at an investigators home that night and she was telling us that about how great her dentist was. We woke up the next morning and he hadnt' gone away so we called the investigator and she took us to her dentist. It turns out that my companion has to get a root canal. It was really nice for investigator to help us out, but kind of sad that we feel closer to her then some members in our ward. I felt so bad because my companion was in so much pain and her face was really swollen. It was hard for us to teach because I could tell she was in so much pain. This week was Zone Conference and we had the privilege to hear from Elder Paul Pieper from the seventy. We met in Liverpool and we were just a small group and it was so great to have one on one time with him. He came down off the pulpit and pulled a chalkboard down and said "we have 3 hours ask me your questions" So for 3 hours we asked questions and he gave some great advice. He use to be a mission president so he knew most of the things we go through and how to answer them. One of the questions that was asked was how do we love those that are hard to love. He gave some great advice. He talked about how Christ developed love one way was through his ministry and the second was the atonement. When the Father left Christ alone to suffer for all of our sins the one thing that kept him strong was his love for all of us. The only thing he had to hold on during that time was his love for all of us. He said that he likes to picture each one of us standing in front of him at that time as he took upon each of our sins and afflictions and knew us personal and what we went through. It was a great way to picture how much the Lord really does love us and has been through what we have been through. We love others by being humble and serving others. It was a great lesson that anyone could learn not only applying to missionary work. It was so great to be able to ask him questions and hear from him. He also compared us missionaries to the song Behold a Royal Army. The leader is our mission president and we are the faithful army doing the Lords work. It was cool to picture. It was a great opportunity to get advice and be with our fellow missionaries. It was a great weekend! Earlier in the week we got a referral from mormon.org so we thought we would go contact that referrall on Sunday. We went to this guys house and he was home and seemed excited that we were there. As we started the lesson he started asking all these questions and we could tell he had done a lot of research. He had studied mormon.org awhile before he agreed to have us come over. He said he was looking for a structured conservative religion. We were very excited to teach him and the lesson went so well. He is excited to come to church the next Sunday. We gave him a chapter in the Book of Mormon to read and he told us that he will just read the whole thing by our next visit. My mouth kind of opened a little..."really?! (that never happens) He seems really sincere to want to learn and we are excited to finally get someone to the singles branch. I love teaching people my age, I can just relate to them so much better. I'm excited and I hope that he will come to church next week! Edwin is getting closer to baptism and everytime we visit him we are able to hear his sweet testimony. We watched the 20 minute restoration dvd. Afterwards he was telling us that he was excited to actually visualize what we had been teaching him. He loved the part when he saw jospeh smith get the plates and when he was sharing it with others. He felt good in his heart is what he said. He is almost done reading the book of mormon. Its always great to hear his testimony and see how he has cahnged! I love being here in Syracuse new york! I love being a missionary! I know this gospel is true! I love you all!

Sister Stacey

Picture 1-5 ZOO!!!!

Picture 6 Zone Conference!!!

"And now my brethren, if our brethren seek to destroy us, behold we will hide away our swords, yeah even we will bury them deep in the earth.." Alma

2011-10-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

"And now my brethren, if our brethren seek to destroy us, behold we will hide away our swords, yeah even we will bury them deep in the earth.." Alma 24: 16

Hello,
Another great week here in Syracuse New York. The weather here is very random, last week it was freezing cold and now its been in the high 70's. We better take advantage of the nice weather before the winter comes. We picked up four new investigators this week, and had some great lessons with our other investigators. The reason for my opening scripture was for our lesson with Dwight. He has been trying to quit coffee so we decided to read this chapter with him and relate it to coffee. It was fun and there were a lot of laughs. There is a part in the chapter where they bury the swords. We were going to bury his coffee pot, but he didn't want to do that. So we took it with us after the lesson. When we saw him at church on Sunday we asked how he was doing, he said "well I haven't had any coffee this morning!" So we hope that he can stay off coffee so he can get baptized next month! YAY!
So a couple weeks ago we were having a lesson with Dwight and his friend Li called and was worried because someone had broken into her place. He thought we could help so we went with him to see his friend. We got her number and told her if she needed anything to call us. We thought afterwards that it was a waste of our time and we probably shouldn't have gone. Well this week I was calling some potentials on the phone. We had another potential also named Li and I thought I was calling her, but it was actually Li (Dwights friends). I set up an appointment and I was all excited and when I looked at the address I realized I had called the wrong Li. I felt dumb, but then I realized this would be a opportunity to teach someone new. So this Saturday we went to her house and her roommate was there as well. They both are from China going to Grad school here at Syracuse University. They both wanted to learn more about the church, I was so excited! So we started teaching the first lesson, but it went completely different. Neither of them had any knowledge of God or Jesus Christ. So as we were teaching the first lesson we were able to go into depth and explain who Jesus Christ was and what he did. He was so cool! I have been wanting to teach people from China so badly. So I'm really excited! Its kind of cool that they haven't been drilled with this back knowledge of the gospel. They are fresh and new at Christianity. We gave them a preview on the Plan of Salvation and they can't wait to meet again. I'm really excited about them!
Saturday was full of lots of service, it was great. That morning we were able to help the Elders investigator garden and pull some weeds. Then later that afternoon we helped our investigator. She was having a birthday party for her son and they were all going to camp out in the backyard. She was so stressed so we went over to help set up the tents. I'm sure it looked so funny with two sister missionaries in skirts setting up tents. I wish I had a picture of that! Its a good thing I love camping and I know how to set up a tent. It was fun! All day we had been in and out of lessons and doing service the last lesson of the night was with a recent convert. Sister Gifford and I were seriously so tired and I'm not sure how we stayed awake, but we did it. I slept really well that night!
I'm really excited about some of these new investigators we picked up. The week goes by so fast and it all blends together so I always forget what has happened to write about on Mondays. I love being here in Syracuse! Its great to be on a mission! I feel so blessed to be able to have this experience!
I love you all,
Sister Stacey

Picture: We are putting together a Halloween party! I'm excited about it!

Pic 2: Some pictures of Syracuse and fall is coming!

Pic 3: Pictures of Syracuse

Pic 4: Our garden Service project! It was fun!

pic 5: Service!

"..1. We must be bold in our belief in Jesus Christ.. 2. Be righteous examples to others.. 3. Speak up about the church!!.." - L. Tom Perry

2011-10-05T10:33:00.000-07:00

CONFERENCE WAS AMAZING!!!

Hello everyone,
Once again we have a wonderful General Conference and are able to hear from our beloved Apostles and Prophets. I feel so blessed to experience conference as a missionary. I don't know how to fully explain it, but its just different in a great way. I feel great to say that we got an investigator to EVERY session of General conference. I don't know how, but it was amazing. I gained a great testimony of how the Lord knows each one of us and really does care about us. I know this because each session our investigator came to was perfect for them and exactly what they needed to hear. Dwight who has been our investigators for awhile came to the Saturday morning conference. After the session we were able to have an awesome lesson with him. It was so great because during our lesson we were able to pull quotes right out of the session we just had watched. It was very powerful, I loved it! We asked Dwight what he thought about the conference. He said right before he came over to watch it, he got a bill in the mail and he was really depressed about it. He sat down and wasn't really listening at first because he was so worried about it and he looked over at us and saw us taking notes and laughing. He then said he had this overwhelming feeling of relief come over him to just forget about the bill and listen to what these people are saying. He said once he started listening he was able to learn things that helped with what he was going through. It was amazing! He was so great to hear him explain the Holy Ghost and he didn't even know. We told him that he felt the Holy Ghost. It was such a great lesson probably one that I will never forget. The spirit was so strong and I was able to pull scriptures up that applied to what he was saying. I know that the spirit was helping me for sure to remember where they were. It was amazing.
Edwin also came to two sessions of conference and the priesthood session. He loved it so much and was taking notes. It was so great to see him be so excited about it. Again the sessions he was at were perfect for him. Everything that was said I know helped him. Its just amazing how the Lord knew which one they needed to go to. I think it just backed up everyone talks yesterday about how Heavenly father really does care about us. We had another investigator come her name is Shiela. She came to the last session on Sunday. The Thursday before we had taught her the Plan of Salvation and a couple talks mentioned a lot that had to do with the Plan of Salvation. It was amazing! It was also great because she walked in with 8 of her grand kids. haha
I'm so sad that I only have one more General Conference as a missionary. Its an experience that I know I will never have again. When I listen, I listen for our investigators or less actives. I know that something said during that session will help in some way. Yesterday there were so many amazing talks. I didn't have one favorite, but many. I loved the talk given by L. Tom Perry. As members we should not be ashamed to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. We must be bold! I have learned this a lot being a missionary. If I'm ashamed of my religion then no one will want to listen to me. I speak with boldness that I know this is true! This was a great talk that every member should read and work on. Another one of my favorite was given by Tad R. Callister all about the Book of Mormon. Wow was this talk powerful! I'm pretty sure that I'm going to pick apart this talk and use it in every lesson of mine. This covered a lot of typical questions people have when we tell them about the Book of Mormon. It was so great and it will be very helpful! I also loved the talk by M. Russell Ballard about the name of the church. I can understand why they keep talking about this. Its so common as a missionary when we talk to someone on the street they always ask us if we are Christian. Then I have to point to my name tag..duhh!! haha It would be so helpful for missionaries if members used our full name so everyone knows that we believe in Jesus Christ and he is the central to our message. So many amazing talks were given. I can't wait to get the ensign and read them more. We are so blessed to receive modern revelation. Don't just listen and wait for the next conference, but listen and do. I have learned that General Conference isn't just a chance to stay at home on a Sunday and have church at home. Its very special modern day revelation given to us for this time. Its amazing how blessed we are. General Conference is a way that Heavenly Father shows his love for us. He wants us to make it through and return to him so he gives us this help. We need to take advantage of it! Its so amazing!

Love you all,
Sister Stacey

pic 1: Us missionaries at conference! It was a great weekend!

"...the people gathered themselves together throughout all the land, that they might go up to the temple to hear the words...

2011-09-27T09:16:00.000-07:00

"...the people gathered themselves together throughout all the land, that they might go up to the temple to hear the words which King Benjamin would speak unto them." Mosiah 2:1

Hello,
I'm so very excited for General Conference! We were able to go to the Relief Society broadcast and it got me so excited for conference. The Relief Society broadcast was amazing and Uchtdorf talk was what every women in the world needed to hear. It helped so much and it was fun to go to it. I loved the idea of the forget me nots. It was so uplifting. I loved at the end of his talk when he said "no matter how dark your days may seem..your Heavenly Father has Not forgotten you." Such great words of wisdom. It just reminds me that my Heavenly Father is always there for me. The week before conference is always great because we get to tell people that the Prophet on the earth today is going to speak to the whole world. They always get so excited and curious to see what a Prophet would say. It reminds me how cool conference really is and how special it is. We are planning on getting a lot of people to come so I'm so happy about that.
This week was amazing! Yesterday was a great fast and testimony meeting. Edwin one of our investigators who is getting baptized on the 8th of October bore his testimony. Me and sister Gifford were reading something together on my planner when we heard Edwin and our heads popped up in shock. It was so powerful! Edwin had a stroke last year and from that he can't talk very well and its a struggle for him. The second he started talking it was clear enough that anyone listening could understand. He talked about how when he went to the pageant missionaries came up to him and he has been meeting with us since. He read a scripture out of the book of Mormon and then held it up and said "I know this book is true!" It was so powerful and I almost cried. Its amazing to see them receive their testimony and then share it with others. That is when I know that they have truly been converted. It was a great testimony and the ward I am in is amazing. The majority of people in the ward are converts to the church. Its just amazing to see! I love converts! There was a general theme in the testimony meeting about people going to the Palmyra pageant and wanting to know more. Its just a great thing! I can't wait to go some day!
This sure was a fast transfer. We got transfer calls this weekend and ..... I'm staying in Syracuse with sister Gifford! I'm very excited about this! We get along well and I think we can do great things this next transfer. Sadly another sister went home this transfer and in all we lost 3 sisters. We had to close two sister areas. So the sisters are very low in the mission which is sad. So if there are any girls out there who want to serve a mission just do it! We need you!
I guess the ward that I am in doesn't have Halloween parties. So we asked if we could put one on and they said yes. So we are going to be planning a Halloween party. I'm excited because we have a lot of investigators that will come! It should be fun!
I don't have to much time. There is always so much packed in one week I forget it all by Monday. I hope you all have a great week and enjoy conference. It really is the best opportunity to learn from our Prophets and apostles. I love the gospel!
Love,
Sister Stacey
Pictures:

pic 1: We went shopping today for P-day. They have the cutest stores around here! I love New York!

pic 2: Our District and Zone Leaders! It was a fun transfer!

pic 3: Our awesome district being silly!

pic 4: Me and Sister Gifford in the car! We are together again for the next transfer! YAY!

pic 5: We were able to go the General Relief Society broadcast. So this is the Fayettville Sisters and us at the broadcast! Its always fun to see other sisters!

"...this is the ministry unto which ye were called to declare these glad tidings unto this people..to prepare their minds...to hear the word....

2011-09-20T09:52:00.000-07:00

"...this is the ministry unto which ye were called to declare these glad tidings unto this people..to prepare their minds...to hear the word at the time of his coming.." Alma 39:16

Hello,
This week seemed to go by fast. Fall is coming, it has been getting colder here in New York. I'm very excited for the Fall and all the beautiful trees. I'm a little worried though for my companion Sister Gifford. She is from Arizona and has never experienced a winter. She was freaking out when it was 57 degrees. I just have to laugh just wait till its 10 below.. haha
Sadly a lot of our investigators keep missing our appointments and we had to drop some. We have been working really hard with Dwight and Edwin because they have a baptism date to be baptized on the 8th of October. So we hope they can make it there. Edwin completed his stop smoking program which was really exciting! This Sunday must have been an off Sunday because we only had one of our investigators come to church. Dwight and Edwin didn't make it which is really sad. Next Sunday will be a better one!
We finally met with one of our investigators this week that we haven't been able to see in awhile. She is so amazing and she knows that the Book of Mormon is true and she knows that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints is the true restored church on the earth, but she is so tied up with activities in her church she doesn't know what to do. I guess she leads the choir and works with little kids in her church and she feels bad to leave. I told her the story of Amulek in the Book of Mormon and how he left all his golds and riches and family and friends because he knew it was true. I hope she feels like she can relate and that it can help. She can't come to church because that's when she teaches her little kids. so we are hoping to get her to General Conference because the second half doesn't start till 4pm. So we will keep trying with her. I'm really excited about her though.
We have been teaching a lot of youth, but with youth its hard to get them to church and motivated. I hope that we can teach their families as well. We had a very interested lesson with some guy that we started to talk to on the streets. We started talking to him and taught him the first lesson right there. When we told him that he should read and pray and ask God if this book is true he said ok and yelled really loud.." GOD IS THIS BOOK TRUE?!" Sister Gifford and I refrained from laughing. These are just some of the awesome people you meet here in Syracuse. It was a lesson to be remembered!
Well I don't have too much to write about for this week. It all kind of blurs together throughout the week. I love sharing the gospel and I love it here in Syracuse. I hope this week we can find some new investigators! I also can't wait for General Conference! I have been counting down the days since the last one in April! Conference is the best!
Love you all,
Sister Stacey

Pic 1: A family in the ward always throws a GREENY dinner for the new missionary. Elder Allred was the greeny and the victim of this dinner. Everything on the table was green..everything!. It was so awesome!

Pic 2: The Provo temple in Syracuse New York.. so weird

pic 3: This is the Methodist church where we volunteer.

pic 4: We sort clothes and give them to people who come in and need them (it's so much fun!)

pic 5: Sister Gifford and I working in the clothes room!

pic 6: I love cats and I thought this was so cute! We always find random stuff when we volunteer!

"I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord and they shall fish them..and after will I send for many hunters and they shall hunt them" Jeremiah16:16

2011-09-13T11:01:00.000-07:00

It was good to finally have a normal week and just be able to focus on missionary work. We got back into our routine and were able to see some success. One of our investigators name is Edwin and the sisters before me found him. He almost dropped us, but he prayed and got his answer that the Book of Mormon was true. He was so happy and wants to be baptized. We have one obstacle and that is smoking. So this week we started the stop smoking program with him and we met with him every single day to help him. So far he has been doing so great and I hope he quits for good. Its been so fun to see how happy he is. When we started the program the first step for him was for him to crush his cigarettes. So we asked him to do that and he said that he couldn't do that. Me and sister Gifford were like..."oh no what do we do now" After a lot of talking it out he finally crushed the cigarettes and we were so happy! I'm not sure what we would have done if he hadn't..it was kind of awkward for a moment. So Edwin has been doing great at quitting smoking! Pray for him!

We are also teaching a man named Dwight who also has a baptism date. He is so awesome! We had a lesson with him earlier in the week on Monday and he opened up to us and told us that he felt guilty to pray now when life was going hard. We were originally teaching about prophets, but the Spirit had something else in mind. We ended up talking about prayer and how it could really help him in his life right now. He has been going through a lot of problems with his health and school. So we told him to pray that night and the next morning. A couple days later when we called him he was so happy. He said that he prayed and everything went perfect that day. Everything fell into place and he even saw a member from the church on the bus and was able to talk to him. He was so happy that he had prayed. It was so great to see that he was able to see for himself the blessings that come from keeping the commandments. It was so exciting!

I'm not sure why, but I just love less actives and love even more when I can get them to read again and even come to church again. I went through the list and found a name of a man who lived close by. So we stopped by and he was home and set up a time to come back. We went over Friday night and met him and his 13 year old daughter. He was way cool and he said he just hasn't been back. He said that missionaries in the past have tried to teach his daughter, but she was way too shy to talk to them. Well I tried to connect to her by asking questions.. I found out that she loves animal movies and video games. Well I do know a little bit about those things. She reminded me so much of my little sister and I started talking to her about movies and she started to open up at the end. It was so great! I invited them to come to church on Sunday and he said he would. So Sunday came and I was worried that they wouldn't come, but we got them a ride and they came! It was so great and I think his daughter loved going to young womens and we got her to go to the youth activity this weekend. I'm really excited and I hope they come again next week. I really hope we can start teaching her!

I have been looking up some of the formers (people missionaries taught in the past) in the area. We found an Asian couple and I called them and they wanted to meet. When we got there and started teaching it seemed like he still had a lot of problems he needed to work out. They believed there is a God, but not a God that actually cares about them and knows them. After the lesson it really came down to them praying and knowing if there really is a God. We asked to come back and they said no. :( Sometimes I get too excited too fast. It's hard and I just wish I could give them what I know and feel, but it doesn't work like that. I think that's one of the hardest parts of a mission. I just wish I could give everyone I teach my feelings, but that would be too easy and not apart of God's plan. I try and remember that and just have faith that the Lord is aware of those people.

So at the end of the day we press on and keep going. When people tell us that they already have their own bible we keep going, when they slam the door in our face, we keep going, when they tell us they don't want to meet anymore, we keep going. Why do we keep going you ask.. because I know this Gospel is true and I want everyone to have the chance to hear about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Lord has asked us "Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost." Matt 28:19 The Lord is counting on me and that is why I keep going!

Thank you all for your letters of encouragement and support! I love you all!

Sister Stacey

"Ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath in his own hands and prepared for you..." D&C 78: 17-18

2011-09-06T12:32:00.000-07:00

"Ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath in his own hands and prepared for you.. and ye cannot bear all things now..be of good cheer for I will Lead you along..." D&C 78: 17-18

Hello,
Suddenly my problems are not bad at all. I feel bad for even complaining about bed bugs. This Tuesday we had interviews with our mission president. We went to the church to meet them there and when we walked in everyone had this really concerned look on their face. President and his wife were both on the phones. An elder came up to us and told us that two sisters serving up in Ogdensburg were in a horrible car accident. We didn't know much then, but we knew it was bad. The president suggested we all kneel down and say a prayer and that seemed to comfort us. President and his wife were on and off the phones calling people. I was their when he called the parents of Sister Bentley who was in the worse condition. I can't imagine being the parent and receiving that phone call. In the midst of all this we did our interviews and it was hard to concentrate. We left and prayed all evening for Sister Love and Sister Bentley. The next morning we had district meeting and President happened to be coming to ours that day. He told us in the beginning of the meeting that Sister Bentley had passed away during the night. It didn't seem real and I still feel like I will see her at the next transfer meeting. We ended up changing the ways of our district meeting and having a testimony meeting. The one thing that was common in all of our testimonies was the plan of salvation. How lucky I am to know that I will be able to see Sister Bentley again. We know where she is and we have the assurance she can live with her family forever. This experience just reminds me how lucky we are to have this knowledge. I have such a strong testimony of the plan of salvation and that we can truly live with our families forever. This week has been a hard one and trying to understand how a missionary could die on her mission has been even harder. My mission president shared some scriptures with us and I liked the one in D&C 78:17-18. We are as little children and we don't understand everything right now. I don't understand why she died, but I know the Lord has a plan for all of us. He will lead us along to understanding. Sister Bentley was a great missionary! She and I both started our missions in Glenville so when ever we did see each other we would talk about the people there. She had a great love for the people she served. Sister Love was also hurt pretty bad and I'm worried for her as well. Continue to pray for the families and sister Love.
This week has felt like an off week and we have been trying to work around it. We hope the bed bugs are gone and we hope we can get back to normality. On Sunday we had a guy come to church looking for a Book of Mormon. He said someone had stolen his and that he used to meet with missionaries before. It was a great blessing and we hope we can start teaching him. Right now we have been teaching a man named Dwight. He is such a great investigator and is so humble. We were able to have a member come to his lesson and it really helped us get to know Dwight better and what he needed. He opened up to us and told us that he hasn't been praying and we were able to help him pray and give all his problems to the Lord. The simple lessons like this is why I'm on a mission.
I don't have too much time to write this week because of the Holiday. I just wanted to end by bearing my testimony of this beautiful Gospel we have. Sometimes I think we take for granted what we have right in front of our faces. We have been so blessed to have the Book of Mormon in our lives. We must use it as guide and really study it. The Book of Mormon will tell us what we need to do in order for us to have eternal life. We get so caught up in the worldly things of life we forget what we are really here for. We are here on earth right now to prepare to meet God. Not to be the best at a sport or be in the top program. We are here to prepare to meet God. We must do everything we can in our power to apply the atonement into our lives because that is the only way we will live with our families forever and live with our Heavenly Father. I'm not sure what I would have done if I had never gone on a mission. It has opened my eyes to what really matters and what is most important. I am so glad I am on a mission. I have the opportunity now to share this truth to the people in New York. I know that Sister Bentley is in the Spirit World doing the same thing. Share this plan with everyone around you because without it they will not live with their families and will not live with God.
I love you all,
Sister Stacey

Keep the families of Sister Bentley in your prayers!

My new address
502 Ivy Ridge Rd.
Syracuse NY 13210

"peace be unto thy soul; think adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment...endure it well God shall exalt thee on high" D&C121:7-8

2011-08-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

Hello,
So I'm going to be completely honest in this email and tell you this was probably the worst weekend ever! Friday morning I woke up with bug bites on my legs and arms but I didn't think too much of it. The night before we had been outside talking to people and I thought I had just been attacked by mosquito's. When I woke up Saturday morning I had even more bites and they were all over. I went to look on my bed and sure enough...there were bed bugs all over my mattress. I will be honest with you I had a major break down only because I knew the big project ahead of me. We would have to spray everything and wash and dry all of our clothes. I'm pretty positive that they had followed me from Glenville. So we spent the whole morning spraying and it was so gross because we were seeing so many bugs. In the middle of our extermination we had promised to move future into one of our investigators apartment. Our investigators name is Dwight and a week before I came into this area he had just walked into the church and wanted to come to church. We have been teaching him since and set him with a baptism date. We had a lesson with him on Thursday and he never showed up. We thought that was weird but then went on to see some of our back ups. Later that night we were by his place again and decided to just stop by. When we knocked on his door he looked so sick. He said he was hoping we would have stopped by because he couldn't move. He has a lot of health problems. When I looked into his apartment all he had was a foam mat and a pillow on the floor and his book of Mormon. That's all he had.. it made me so sad to see. We helped him get to the bus so he could go to urgent care. We felt bad because he had no food or anything.. we went to our apartment and grabbed what we had and took it back to his. We really wanted to find him a bed or something. We happened to go check on a potential of someone living right by Dwight. I'm not sure how the conversation led to this, but he happened to have a couch and a bed that he was going to get rid of. We were so excited to give them to Dwight. The Lord really does watch out for us. Tender mercies of the Lord. So after our extermination of the bed bugs we went and the Elders came and helped us move in some furniture for Dwight. He was so happy to have something to sleep on! It was a great feeling to be able to help him!
So after we helped Dwight we went to the laundromat and started washing all of our clothes again. So my bites started to get worse and started to swell and I was getting nervous. So we went back to the apartment finished our de-bug routine and it was about 8:30 when Sister Bulloch (the mission presidents wife) said I should go to Urgent care. So me and Sister Gifford started to head to Urgent care. On top of all this bed bug drama we got word from Sister Bulloch that there is a hurricane hitting the east coast. So we grabbed some food and some water and a flash light just in case the power went out and headed on our way to Urgent care. When we got there of course it was busy busy and we waited three hours before a doctor could see me. We were getting pretty bored so we decided to count all the bites on my body. We stopped counting when we got to 100 and I'm seriously not even kidding. We didn't get home till 12:30am and we just fell asleep in the living room. We were so exhausted the next morning when we woke up. We had to go get my prescription and then head to church. We were so scatter brained. We got a voicemail from Dwight and he said he was in the ICU and that he won't be at church. So we had to go see him. Heavenly Father did bless us with investigators coming to church. We had an investigator call and get his own ride to church which NEVER happens. It was amazing! On top of that all day Sunday it was super rainy and windy. (because of the hurricane) It was a crazy day. We are still working on getting an exterminator to come. I'm so sick of these bed bugs and I think there just going to follow me my whole mission. Its been a really tough weekend and I just wish I could be doing missionary work instead. I hope we can figure this problem out. I feel so bad for my new companion. I hate that I have brought this problem onto her as well. I just feel so bad. I hope this week will be better and I really want to be doing missionary work. I really hope this is the last time I have to deal with bed bugs. We don't hear much about whats going on. I hope the people are OK who were hit by the hurricane. Apparently my last area Glenville they cancelled church yesterday because of high winds. So I hope that everyone is OK. Its been a crazy week. Prayer has got me through.. I hope next week is better!
Love you all,
Sister Stacey

Syracuse Transfer #5

2011-08-23T21:15:00.000-07:00

Hello,

I am in my new area now with my new companion. It was really hard to leave Glenville. It felt like I was leaving my family behind and going on my mission to Syracuse. It was sad to leave the members and my recent converts, but I guess this is where faith needed to come to play. It was hard to adjust but as soon as we started meeting with the people and the members I started to feel more comfortable. I was so surprised to see how many people we were teaching and we have 6 people with a baptism date. Its amazing to see how different areas are. Syracuse is split up between the elders and us. We have the east side of Syracuse which includes Syracuse University. Students have started to come into town and I think this will be a great finding tool for us. Both the Elders and us cover the ward and the singles branch. Its been kind of confusing to me that I have two wards to cover, but I'm starting to get the hang of it. Its been way fun and it reminds me of my awesome Institute back home in Fort Collins. I know this will be a great area. My companion is from Arizona and she has been out for 6 weeks. We get along great and I think this transfer will be a great one. I have really high hopes for this area and I think we will be teaching quit a bit. Syracuse is a big city so there are lots of people out and about. Its way fun!

I don't have to much time and not too much to write about. This week has felt long because of the transfers, but I'm all settled in now. I've started to get to know the area and the people. I'm very excited for this place!

I love you all!

Sister stacey

Last Goodbyes in Glenville; Last goodbye with Melanie and Mellon family

"I'll go where you want me to go dear Lord.."

2011-08-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

I can't believe how much can happen in just one week. This week was full of many interesting things. Tuesday morning I woke up with a really sore throat and it kept getting worse and worse. Luckily there are some nurses in the ward.. I found out I had Strep Throat. So I had Strep and it was basically awful. We had to stay inside one day and it was so boring! I was able to get some Anti biotics. We picked up two new investigators on thursday. The first week of the transfer we were trying to find this one guy. We knocked on his door and asked if it was him and it wasn't. So we started talking to this man and he told us we could come back. Then this week we went back again to see if he still wanted to meet. His wife was also there this time and seemed very excited to have us come over. We went in and taught them the first lesson and they were excited to learn. At the end of the lesson she said each time before we came to the door her husband had asked God for direction in his life and each time he asked that question we had knocked on the door. It was a great confirmation to us that we had been following the Spirit. So were excited to continue to teach them!

So Michele's baptism was this weekend! I was feeling so sick and I was a little stressed because we had to put on this baptism on Saturday. I feel so blessed to have the priesthood in my life. I was able to get a blessing and when saturday came I was feeling well enough to prepare for the baptism. I am so grateful for the priesthood in my life and worthy men who are always prepared to give a blessing! The baptism went so well! So many people came to the baptism we almost didn't have room for everyone. It was a great turn out! After Michele was baptized she was talking to Sister Waddignton (the members she is close with) she said she never wanted to come out of the water. She loved the feeling she had and never wanted to come out. It was so cute! It was great to be there!

So the second to last saturday of the transfer we get "transfer calls" I particulary do not like these.. it makes me nervous all day. We waited eagerly for the call telling us if we would stay or go. I had done the math and I knew it would come down to Syracuse or Ogdensburg. Sister Swick served in Ogdensburg and the way she talked about it sounded like it was pretty much in the middle of no where.. Lets say Sister Zwick would have been happy if I went to Ogdensburg. Finally the phone rang and the Elder said "Sister Stacey you will be going to SYRACUSE West serving with Sister Gifford!" YAY!!! haha I'm really excited about Syracuse and it has been a place I have wanted to serve in! I knew that I would be leaving this area and I feel really good about going to Syracuse. My new companion will be Sister Gifford. She has only been on her mission for 6 weeks. So I will be second transfer training her. I'm excited about this and I think that my mission president is preparing me for training! haha So the next day was Sunday and I knew it would be my last in Glenville. I had planned to sing in church, but because of my good luck I got strep throat that week. My throat was really sore still and my ears were plugged. It was not good, but I wanted to sing badly because I knew it was my last sunday. I was sitting next to Melanie and I was really nervous that I would cough in the middle of the song. She wrote me a little note telling me to have faith in the Lord. That I shouldn't worry and he would let me sing well. It amazes me how much Melanie has grown and has the Spirit with her. It almost made me cry to see how much her testimony has grown. The way she was able to comfort me. I went up to the pulpit coughing and the music started to play and the second I opened my mouth my throat cleared up and I was able to sing the whole song. The power of faith can really work miracles. I was happy I was able to do it and it went well! It was sad saying goodbye to everyone. The members here have been so great to me! I have also been having a bad toothace this week. So just my luck there is a dentist in the ward. He fixed up my tooth which was way nice of him. It was funny though because we had a dinner appointment right after and half my mouth was numb. Very interesting week I had.. haha

My time here in Glenville has come to an end. The last couple of days I have been saying my goodbyes and it has not been easy. These people here in Glenville have become my family. I didn't think it would be this hard and honestly didn't think I would get this attach to people on my mission. I still feel like I have so much to do here in Glenville and could honestly serve my whole mission here, but I know the Lord has other plans in store for me. I just need to have trust in him that I'm needed in Syracuse. The friendships I have made here will last forever. Last night I had planned to see the Sullivans last. I would say that was probably the hardest goodbye, but it was great to see the love that I had for them. They have really helped me grow these past 6 months. I will miss them and I WILL BE BACK! Glenville will always have a special place in my heart. It is where I started my mission. I feel like I'm leaving my family again to go on a mission to Syracuse. haha I know its my time to go, but I have loved my time here. I will never forget the memories I have made here. I will never forget the people I have taught and how they have helped change my life. It will be very hard to say goodbye to Melanie today. She has become one my best firends. Everytime we went to teach her she always taught me something. I am so happy I was able to help her on her path to eternal life. I love being a missionary and I know change is apart of it. Change is hard, but I'm also starting to see that change is good! I love being a missionary, I'm excited for my new area and new people. I feel so blessed to be here in New York!

I love you all,

Sister Stacey

Pic 1: Me, Michele, and Sister Belnap at the baptism

Pic 2: Michele and I at her Baptism

Pic 3: Last District Meeting! Best District EVER!

pic 4: District Meeting!

pic 5: The Maughan Family!

Pic 6: the sullivans!

pic 7: My favorite Less actives!

pic 8: My fav LA. She loves harleys.. haha

"Behold, he changed their hearts; yea, he awakened them out of a deep sleep, and they awoke unto God.."

2011-08-09T12:23:00.000-07:00

Hello,

So depending on what happens this Saturday at transfer calls this might be my last full week in Glenville New York. I try not to think about it. I have been trying to mentally prepare myself..but I'm pretty sure it will be a hard move. I just need to have trust in the Lord and the Mission President that where I go next is where I need to be. Even if it is here in Glenville for another transfer! :) So if your totally awesome and you want to write me in the next couple weeks. You should probably send it to the mission office address. That way if I do get transferred I won't lose the letters!

Sister Jennifer Michelle Stacey

New York Utica Mission

PO Box 149

Whitesboro, NY 13492-0149

So this week has been so great! We weren't able to meet with Michele that often, but it was good because she was at Youth Conference. They all went to Palmyra and spent the night and went to the temple and all the sites. I believe she had a great time and is really fitting well into the ward! The baptism is official and set for this Saturday the 13th! I'm very excited and I hope everything works out well! We had to meet her grandparents this week and they were very accepting of her choice to be baptized. It was so great! Once we got their signature it was official and she could get baptized! She is so excited and I feel so blessed to be apart of it!

I finally had my first lesson wtih Araina. Me and Sister Despain tracted into her and I missed the first lesson because I was gone for exchanges. She is Jehovah's witness so its been interesting. The lesson went well and we brought a member with us that helped a lot! I have gained a huge testimony of getting members to lessons. It really helps the investigators progress faster and feel comfortable when they come to church. The lesson went well and we taught her about the plan of salvation. She had many questions, but seemed interested. She said she had tried to pray about the Book of Mormon, but felt silly. At least she is trying and that shows great progress. I'm really excited to teach her again! This also shows that even though tracting isn't my favorite...you can really find people who are searching.

So something fun and interesting going on in my area lately... If you know me well, you would know that I LOVE LOVE movies. Well there is a movie being filmed in my area as of right now. It has been the talk of the town! The big actor Ryan Gosslin is in it and there filming a movie that is called "The place beyond the pines" (which means Schenectady) Some of the youth in the ward signed up to be extras in the movie. (so jealous!) So the day they will be filming in our area...hmm... we might just maybe go tracting in the neighborhoods surrounding it. haha Just Kidding.. but I'm pretty excited about that. It will be cool to see the movie and see the area where I served for 6 months!

Well not too much more has happened this week. It just might be my last week here which makes me sad. I'm going to live it up and try my best to work this area until I leave!

Love,

Sister Stacey

Pic 1: We have a fun Air Museum in our area. Planes fly out of here to take supplies to Antarctica, which is cool. Its not opened on Mondays, but the man who is in charge of it came on his day off and gave us a tour! There were so many awesome planes! I thought of my grandpa and my dad.. they would have loved it! So this is me and Sister Belnap in front of one

Pic 2: Yes that is me inside the plan and yes I'm wearing a skirt! So something cool about this plane is that it was the actual plan in the Movie Top Gun. It was used on the set. So I thought that was really exciting!

Pic 3: I love cats! This cat has been my favorite so far! She would let me hold her the whole time I was over at these people house. It was amazing!

Exhanges in Vermont!

2011-08-02T09:37:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,
This week was another good week here in Glenville. I went on my first real exchange where I was able to be the one that goes to another area. My first two transfers I had bed bugs so we weren't aloud to exchange with other sisters. I guess they didn't want bed bugs or something. haha The closes sisters to Glenville are the sisters in Benninghton Vermont. So it was fun to be able to go to another state for exchange. I worked with Sister Cox who was actually trained by my trainer Sister Swick. Vermont is so beautiful and the town of Bennighhton is so cute. It's a big tourist site in the summers, so lots of people were there. It was cool to meet other people and get to know another area. It did also make me miss Glenville and when I returned I was happy. It was a great exchange and I was excited to see a new area and work with someone new. It was fun!
Some exciting news is that Melanie was able to go to the temple last week. I am so proud of her for setting her goals to get there. She was able to be baptized for her grandmother. She said it was a great experience! She also has been studying preach my gospel a lot preparing to serve a mission next summer! Its very exciting to see how she has grown since I first met her!
Michele is doing great and we are still planning on the baptism for August 13th. We also were able to pick up three pretty solid new investigators. One was a girl that me and Sister Despain tracted into. She is actually a Jehovah's Witness, but was pretty open to us coming back. I was on exchange, but sister Belnap met with her and she was excited to learn about the Plan of Salvation. So we're excited about that. We also picked up two new investigators from the help of some members. Sister Zwick and I first met them at the passover meal we went to. We have been trying to meet with them since. We had dinner with them and we were able to teach the message of the restoration. We also were able to answer a lot of questions they had. It was very exciting! We set up a return appointment and committed them to come to church on the 14th. We are very excited and the work seems to be doing so great here in Glenville. Something that also was cool that I was able to do was talk about my experience in Jerusalem. I was able to bear my testimony on that experience and how it strengthened my relationship with my savior. After I bore my testimony one of the investigators turned to us and said "Oh I thought you didn't believe in Christ." So it was cool to share my experience with them and confirm to them that we do in fact believe in Jesus Christ. It was a great experience. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss Jerusalem and the experiences I had there. It has helped my testimony grow as I have been on my mission. Using the Bible and the book of Mormon to help bring people closer to Christ. It was a great week! I am so happy to be here in Glenville!
Love,
Sister Stacey

Pictures

Vermont was beautiful, but they also had really random things there. They have painted moose all over Bennighton it was kind of funny. It was a great exchange with Sister Cox

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

2011-07-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

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!!!!!

2011-07-19T18:23:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-07-12T23:34:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-07-05T21:36:00.000-07:00

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

.."I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things..." Alma 26:12

2011-06-28T00:30:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

This week was great! Its been fun to see Melanie apart of the ward now. They all seem to love her and she fits in so well. The coolest part of Melanie becoming a member is now she can come teaching with us! On friday she had work off all day so she came to all our appointments and she was loving it. She would talk to people on the street and read her poems. It was so great to see her in action. She will be a great missionary! Everyone in Schnecteday is from Brooklyn so it was great to have Melanie come around with us because that is where she is from. It was great because as soon as we would talk to someone they would have a connection. Its been so fun to have her come teaching with us she is going to be a great great missionary!

We picked up a new investigator named Scott and he is golden! The elders called us and told us this guy had been trying to find missionaries. He used to live in Albany and was close with the elders there, but those elders left and he stopped going to church. He said that he had been searching other religions, but nothing was like the latter day saints. Our first lesson with him was amazing. He kept talking about how welcomed he feels when he comes to church. He understood the lesson and was very sincere about learning. He was so excited about coming to church, but he got called into work on Sunday. So hopefully next Sunday he will be able to come. We met with him on Sunday and he felt so bad he wasn't able to come to church. He continues to explain to us the feelings he remembered when he goes to church and when he has lessons with us. He said he likes to read the Book of Mormon because he is able to feel those feelings again. I'm so excited about Scott and I can't wait for him to come to church next Sunday! A day after we met scott he was giving us referrals of his friends that we could go meet with. Its great to see how excited he is about the church!

We had dinner on Sunday with a family from Puerto Rico that we are teaching. They made some food and a member from our church who is also from there came with us. They were speaking in Spanish a lot and I didn't get much of the dinner conversation. haha It was fun that they wanted to have us over! I'm excited to continue to teach them and hopefully we can get them to church next Sunday. I got a little experience of how it would be to serve in another country. It was fun!

We were eating at a members home on Monday and he is very passionate about missionary work. He is also very passionate about Jimmer. He told us that he was being drafted and that in Glens Falls (Jimmer's hometown) they were having "Jimmer Fest" where lots of people were getting together to see where he will be drafted. The member suggested it would be a good finding tool to go there. So me and sister Despain were very excited. We called our Zone Leaders and gave them the suggestion that it would be a great "zone activity" and waited patiently for the response. Thursday morning they called us and told us that it was a no go! I guess the district there did it, we were too far. Very sad, it was a good try though!

I finished the Book of Mormon and I began reading it again, but this time I am highlighting every reference to Jesus Christ. I love reading the Book of Mormon focusing on Jesus Christ. Its amazing how the much the Book of Mormon brings us closer to him. I wish more people would give it a try and see that the Book of Mormon really is another testament of Jesus Christ!

Well I don't have much time! Mission work is great! I love finding new people and I love teaching! I also love how the Book of Mormon can answer any questions you have! Its the best book in the world!

Love you all,

Sister Stacey

pic 1: The family from Puerto Rico

pic 2: The day we had the bikes was the hardest it has rained since I've been here. We were so soaked!!! haha fun fun got to love missionary work!

"...then shall ye immerse them in the water, and come forth again out of the water..." 3 Nephi 11:26 (MELANIE'S BAPTISM!)

2011-06-20T13:42:00.000-07:00

Hello!

This week was the best week ever! First off I must talk about Melanie's Baptism which was absolutely amazing! Melanie was so excited and she had invited some of her family and friends and a lot of people from the ward came to support her. I didn't see her once without a smile on her face. She couldn't have been happier. Her friend who invited her to church last year and is the reason for her finding the church spoke and it was beautiful. When she was baptized it took three times to fully immerse her under water. It was kinda funny, now we have a joke " Third times a charm!" While she was getting changed Sister Despain and I used that time as a teaching moment and taught the first lesson talking about Joseph Smith and the book of mormon. We gave a book of mormon to all her friends who came. It was a great opportunity to share the gospel and I hope her friends felt the spirit and will want to learn more. I'm not sure if I have mentioned this before, but melanie is an amazing poet. She writes beautiful poems. She came back and was able to share her poem with us. It was so beautiful and it was all about her changing and being this new person. People were crying afterwards.. it was amazing! The baptism was perfect and the Spirit was present. I loved seeing her so happy and she kept describing it like she was a new person. To give an example of how amazing Melanie is, she brought her first tithing slip to her baptism and gave it to the bishop after her baptism. I think the bishop was a little shocked..it was funny, but that's the type of person she is. Her testimony is so strong and she loves the Lord with all her heart. I feel so blessed to have met her and I feel so blessed to be apart of her path to returning to our Heavenly Father. I wish you could have all been there! She was most excited to receive the Holy Ghost on Sunday. It was so great!

I feel like I could end my email right there because it was such a great baptism, but we worked a lot and we found a new Investigator. It was a member referral and we stopped by her house and she let us in and we taught her the first lesson. She has two little boys and her husband is in the Army. She reminds me and kind of looks like my sister Laura. I just wanted to give her a hug, but I think she would have been a little creeped out. haha After the lesson we asked if she had any questions that she wanted answered. She asked about her kids and if they died what would happen if they weren't baptized. We gave her Moroni 8 to read. She told us that no one else had been able to answer that for her. So we hope to see her this week and I'm so excited! Its so hard to be patient I just want to visit her everyday! haha I was excited about that!

We had District meeting and Interviews with our Mission President this week. I love when they come in town and I love listening to our mission president speak. He is amazing! My interview was good. He apologized in a way for giving me two companions in a row who are on their last transfer, but I told him I was fine. He also asked me how I would feel about training in the near future. Not next transfer, but soon. I think it freaked me out a little bit. How can I be trainer.. I just got out on my mission. I still feel like a greenie. So well see what happens with that. The district meeting was centered on our personal study. "Seek not to declare my word, but first seek to obtain my work, then shall your tongue be loosed.." D&C 11:21 We must study before the Spirit can help us in our lessons and reveal to us what scripture to read or what to say. It was a great lesson and I"m going to focus a lot more on my morning program. He told us how the scriptures are like poetry that there is a deeper meaning. When we read them we must not read it in a literal way. That everything you read has a deeper meaning. It was a great lesson, it made me more excited to learn and study. I love being able to study for 2 hours in the morning!

So Friday before Melanie's baptism we went to lunch with her. On the way she wanted to stop by and pick up a skirt she wanted for her baptism. It was a Indian store (reminded me of Israel) She told the owner that she was being baptized and she was to become a latter day saint. Well she was familiar with mormons and we started to ask her questions. Come to find out she is atheist and she got really defensive and said if God allows suffering to happen then there is not God. Let me remind you this is a day before Melanie's baptism so me and Sister Despain were a little worried. We left the store and just had to laugh and explain to melanie.. don't worry this happens all the time. Melanie handled it well and was actually saying stuff to her. She is going to be a great missionary.

So as you know i'm sure, there is a Book of Mormon play on Broadway and we hear about it all the time here in upper state New York. It has been the talk of the town I guess since it won all these awards. When ever we ask people if they have ever heard of Mormons before they always bring up that play. Even though its a bad play we can use it to our advantage and we do. Whenever they bring up the play we say this to them, "Well thats great, but the real Book of Mormon play has been going on for 20 years and its in Palmyra New York and its free!," Then we give them a pass along card with the info for it. haha This things are always going to come up and we just have to take it and make it into a good thing. I've heard that the church has been putting Mormon.org advertisement all over New York City, I bet those missionaries are loving it! So if you have been approached with this issue, just say what we say.. show them the real book of Mormon play! haha

We have had two missionaries get home from their missions this week in the ward. It was great to hear them speak and to see how their mission blessed their lives and others. It makes me happy that I still have so much time left to improve and work harder! Its also been great because each one has come up to us and offered to come to any lesson we have opened.So we will always have a member present! haha I love return missionaries.. they love their mission and they want to continue to be missionaries. When I get home I'm going out with the missionaries everyday! I never want to stop being a missionary! You can tell they were great missionaries!

This week has been a great week! I feel so happy and blessed to be a missionary right now in Glenville New York. I love the people here and I love being a missionary! Share the GOSPEL!!!! Give referrals to missionaries!!!

Love you all,

Sister Stacey!

Pictures:

Some are of the baptism. Then some are from when we went to lunch with Melanie. The last ones are from our lame Hike. We wanted to go hiking and we were told this was a cool place..no it was lame! haha I guess any hike will be lame coming from colorado! ha

..."For my soul delighteth in the scriptures, and my heart pondereth them.." 2Nephi 4:15

2011-06-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

Hello,

So I thought I would share that scripture because that is really how I feel. I love learning from the scriptures and I get so excited when I learn something new.
This week was another great week! First off Melanie's baptism is this Saturday. She passed her interview and is set and ready to go. She is one of those people that others gravitate to. She has made so many friends in the ward and I'm guessing a lot of people will come this weekend to her baptism. I'm so excited for her to be baptized and especially excited for her to have the Holy Ghost with her always. That is what she is most excited about. She has invited her family from Brooklyn and friends from school so this will also be a great finding opportunity. We hope to teach a little bit about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon so I'll have to let you know how that goes.
Something funny.. As you all know my last name is also a first name. This has brought confusion to people we meet. They will always look to my Companion (sister Despain) and wonder why she has such a weird first name. Its always fun to explain to them that.."no this is really my last name not my first." I thought that was funny.. I feel bad for the rest of my companions. haha
This week was pretty interesting. We met up with a guy we have seen before and he is born again Christan. Well this week when Sister Despain and I went to meet with him he brought a friend. They both like ganged up on us. Telling us what we really believe and trying to tell us that they were their to save us. The whole time I was wondering why they were trying so hard to save us and bring us closer to Christ. Our name tag plainly says, " the church of JESUS CHRIST of latter day saints" They don't think we believe in Christ. I don't think they can read. It was an interesting lesson and tension was their so we told them we aren't their to argue and then we left. Those lessons only strengthen my testimony. I'm so happy that I have the full gospel of Jesus Christ in my life!
Something interesting happened this week. Me and sister Despain were trying to put our air conditioner in the window and we were kind of struggling. Our neighbors who were across the hall saw and came over to help us. It was very nice of them, as they were about to leave the wife started to ask us about what we believe. She said she had been church hopping a lot trying to find a place to go. I was shocked and I just assumed that the 16 missionaries who lived here before us would have talked to them. I guess its all in the Lords' time. We had to go so we shared a brief message and told them we would come back. I felt bad for never talking to them before. You never know with neighbors, its not like the other people who slam the doors in your face you don't have to see them again. haha Anyways we are excited about that and hopefully we can get them to come to church one Sunday.
This week I also went on an exchange with the sisters who are in Benninghton Vermont. Me and Sister Goettsche were companions for the day. She is from Thorton Colorado so we had much to talk about. It was fun! I stayed here in Glenville and we worked around Schnecetady. It was so much fun and we ended up teaching 5 lessons that day. At the end of the day it was great to be back with Sister Despain. Its weird because you know that both of us working together in this area is what the Lord wants. It was cool to see the difference.
One of our Less Actives has come to all three hours of church two weeks in a row. Its been so great to see her come. We told her that when she comes to all three hours that she will recieve many blessings. We met with her last week and she said she had received blessings for attending. It was great to have her see for herself how the Lord works and is willing to help us as long as we keep the commandments and do our part. That was pretty exciting!
Well things here in Glenville are progressing. Me and sister Despain get along well and its been great to work with her. We have done really well at finding new people and teaching a lot. I'm excited for Saturday and I hope that everything goes well. I'm so happy to be here and help change others lives! Its been a great experience to bring others closer to Jesus Christ. I love the Gospel!
Until next time
Love,
Sister Stacey

pic 1: Sullivans were doing this Garage Sale thing and Mike Sullivan had his Hot Dog cart. We stopped by and had a hot dog and tried to get him to come to church on Sunday. haha

pic 2: Hot Dog cart

pic 3: Me and Sister Goettsche on exchange! love her!

....all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good...(D&C 122:7)

2011-06-06T22:04:00.000-07:00

Hello,
Another bittersweet week for me. So Timmia has been acting weird this past week and we went to have our DTR (determine the relationship) with her yesterday. She told us that she didn't want to be baptized anymore. Her aunt has been giving her a hard time about our church and I think she didn't want to fight it anymore. I was crushed when she told us she didn't want to be baptized. I'm just so bummed, but like that scripture said it will be for thy good. No work is wasted and we planted a seed in her heart. Someday she will remember.
On the happier note we stopped by Amiee's house to give it another try and she opened the door. I was nervous she was going to shut it again. I think I put my arm out just in case.. haha. She let us in and told us sorry for slamming the door the other day. She was having a bad day. (hmmm..) She let us in and we chatted with her for awhile and we set up a return appointment. I hope she wont' freak out again, but I was pretty happy. She said she will come to church again next week. So hopefully that works out! I'm excited about that.
Melanie is still on for her baptism on June 18th and she is basically amazing! As you all know yesterday was fast and testimony meeting and she got up to baer her testimony. It was sooo amazing! She talked about how her trip to Palmyra with the single adults was the best weekend ever. They all went up friday night and spent the night and went and saw all the sites. She described it as a bubble and everyone was so nice to her. She said she never wanted to leave that bubble and go back to the real world. She said after that weekend she wanted everyone to know what she knew. She talked about how excited she was to be baptized and join the church. Her testimony was amazing and made me tear up a little bit. It was a great reminder of how great missionary work is. It was a great reminder to me that I made the best choice to come on a mission! I loved it! It was so great because after she bore her testimony all these people who were converted into the church got up and spoke of the day thy were baptized and how it was a blessing to them. The rest of the meeting was centered on missionary work.. it was awesome! I was so proud of her!
Melanie even brought a friend to church yesterday. He was from Bolivia and at the end of church we were talking to him and he was so happy he came. He really enjoyed it. He was going back to Bolivia and we told him where to find the church there. He was going to look it up when he went back. Some missionaries are about to be very happy. haha It was great to see Melanie doing missionary work and she hasn't even been baptized yet.
Last Monday we went to a stake picnic party and we got a referral to check up on some people who use to attend the Glens Falls ward. They referred us to the Ferdettes who would know more information about them. I was so excited to meet them, but then someone told us they didn't make it to the picnic that day.. BUMMER! So close!
We picked up three new investigators this week and one was a family from Puerto Rico. They seemed nice and we have an appointment to meet with them next week. I hope it works out and we can get them to church.
Missionary work comes with a lot of up's and down's and I had a lot of those this past week. No matter how many down's there are I have already seen how the up's out weigh them all! I love missionary work!

Until next time..
Love,
Sister Stacey

New Companion..Third Transfer!

2011-05-31T17:34:00.000-07:00

Hello,

So its a new transfer and I have a new Companion. Her name is Sister Despain and she is from Idaho. Its her last transfer which means I'll probably be here in Glenville two more transfers. I was not complaining about that AT ALL! I love this area! Saying goodbye to Sister Zwick was sooo hard. All the missionaries being transferred were at the mission office. I never wanted to leave her side. She was all I had known of what a mission was. When the time came when we weren't companions anymore I started to cry. She taught me well and I miss her. I forget that change is a big part of missionary work. I better get use to it I guess. haha The ward members were really sweet and wanted to make sure I was ok because sister Zwick was home. They made sure to give me updates on how she had been doing.

So because sister Zwick left I was given the responsibility to take over the area. So basically all things were up to me. I have been explaining a lot this past week about the area and the people to sister Despain. I'm going to have to do it all over again in 6 weeks, but thats ok cause I love this area. Me and sister Despain have been working hard. We taught 18 lessons this week and found two new investigators. That was pretty exciting and we felt pretty good about that. One of our new investigators name is Lenny. He kept talking about the end of the world. As missionaries we only get bits and pieces of world news and we did hear about the man that predicted the end of the world. We have been getting a lot of questions on what we believe will happen. Anyways Lenny said he was really scared that night the world was going to end, but then he saw a rainbow and felt like that was a sign that everything would be ok. I laughed inside because that really is a sign. I thought that was funny, but the spirit is there and comforts people. We only had one person come to church on Sunday.

Timmia has been getting a lot of pressure from her Aunt about coming to our church. In our lesson with her on saturday we asked her if she really wants to come to our church and she said yes she does. We practiced with her some things she can say to her aunt when she confronts Timmia. So hopefully that will work and we can get her to church next Sunday.

Two more weeks till Melanie's baptism! She went to Palmyra with the singles ward last week and she loved it. It totally pumped her up and she said she made so many friends. She is amazing and I'm so grateful to have met her. I can't wait for her to get baptized! She even brought a friend to church! She is already a great missionary!

Well because of memorial day and we couldn't email yesterday I don't have as much time today. I hope everything is going well in the West! I miss and love you all! Oh and its starting to get soo HOT here... the humidity!! aaahhh I hope I can make it! lol

Love,

Sister Stacey

pic 1) This is Timmia's Littlbe brother Jaja.. he is so crazy!

pic 2) The tree's here are so beautiful. This is right by our house

pic 3) In memory of Sister Zwick. We bought all New york stuff. haha

pic 4) Sister Zwick and all her lasting Companions at the mission office

pic 5) All the Sisters at the mission office

pic 6) We were driving and this Turttle was in the middle of the road.. random!

Transfer time is here...I'm not good with goodbyes!

2011-05-24T23:21:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Well first off we had transfer calls on Saturday night. It was sad because I knew this would mean sister Zwick was going home and leaving me. My new companion will be coming from Fayetville. I went on a exchange with her once. She is a little different from Sister Zwick so well see how that goes. I'm not sure how she will feel about coming to my bed bug apartment. That will be fun! It will also be her last transfer which means I will probably get to stay another 2 transfer here in beautiful Glenville New York! That was my favorite part about transfer calls. Its going to be really hard to send Sister Zwick home. We have become best friends these past three months. I will miss her so much!

This week a women in the ward I'm serving in past away. She was in her 60's and had very bad health. We had met her when we first got here and she loved the missionaries. She was the sweetest woman! The family loved our song we sang last Sunday so they asked us to sing at the funeral. I felt a little weird and thought we would be intruding, but they loved it and thought it would be nice. It was amazing to see the ward work to put the funeral together. I love how the church is one big family and its amazing how organized it is. The relief society had the whole thing planned out. It was a great service and was filled with much hope and love. Its a great feeling to know that there family will be together forever and that Sister Taylor has just moved on to the next stage in her life. The song went great and I was happy to sing again. This older couple came up to us afterwards and jokingly she said she would love for us to sing at her funeral some day. I thought that was funny! So that was different thing we did this week.

This is sister Zwicks last week so we have been making the rounds and saying goodbye to everyone. Its hard because it just reminds me how I'm going to have to say goodbye to her soon as well. She is moving on to the next stage of her life. We spent our last night with the Sullivans and it was great to have one last good lesson with them and their family. We have been trying to get Mike to read the Book of Mormon. He hasn't been doing it so I gave the family an assignment. Each kid has a day to read the book of Mormon with their Dad. So hopefully this little plan will work! We always joke around that when we leave we can't wait to come back for Mike's baptism. He just laughs..but it will happen!

This week I gave my first training in my district and that was really fun. I love to teach so I was more than happy to help out the district leader. I taught about gaining the trust of members. I learned that members are a huge help to missionary work. I promise myself that when I get off my mission I'm going to be the best member missionary ever! I know how much it helps as a missionary to have that! It was fun to teach and I think I did ok.

Kind of a cute story.. We teach a less active each week and her name is Sister Stevens. She has been trying to quit smoking. One morning we got a call from her. She wanted to know which section in the Doctrine and Covenants did they talk about keeping our body healthy. It was so cute.. I gave her the section and told her a little about it. I was so happy to see that she is trying and reading her scriptures!

We met with Timmia and we told her that she needs to be coming to church every sunday before she can be baptized. She was sad we had to move her date again. She was pumped to come this Sunday and we told her she had to call for her ride. Well Sunday came and she didn't come. I'm not sure what to do. She really wants to get baptized and she has a great testimony, but she just won't come to church. I don’t know what to do.. I thought baptism would motivate her to come to church each week! Well see what happens!

So Melanie is for sure getting baptized on June 18th. She is so GOLDEN (as us missionaries would say) Her lessons are so amazing and every time we meet with her she has so many questions about what she had read in the B.O.M. She has been looking at BYU to get her masters. She really wants this! As a missionary her lessons is what makes everything so worth it. She is so excited to learn and she cant' wait for the day she is baptized. She has been telling all her friends and family about her baptism. She is already a missionary! I'm so excited to be able to be here for that! Its also so great to teach someone our own age. We can just relate to her better! ITS SO AWESOME!!

Well I didn't have much time to write this week because sister Zwick is packing and getting ready to go home. Its hard to send missionaries home. I know that I won't see her for another year. Its kinda sad! I wish her the best of luck though!

We both came into this area three months ago not knowing anyone. Now we have two baptismal dates set. She is an amazing missionary. Even though she won't be here for Melanie's actual baptism she was the one who got her to that point. Were all doing the same work! I'm going to miss her and I know the people here in Glenville will miss her as well!

Love you all,

Sister Stacey!

pic one.. My district (were awesome)

pic 2: Union College trolly..i thought it was cute!

pic 3: Timmia and her little brother. Our last lesson with Sister Zwick

Pic 4 This is with dave senior and dave junior! We just picked them up a couple weeks ago!

pic 5: The smith family. There son is serving in the Denver North mission

pic 6: our ward adopted a trail and we were in charge of cleaning it this week!

pic 7: The sullivan kids

pic 8: This is the Bishops family and kids. They are the best!

pic 9: Sister Zwick and I with melanie!

Greetings From Glenville!

2011-05-17T09:19:00.000-07:00

Hey!

Another great week in Glenville New York! I feel like this week was longer than usual weeks. We have been helping a part member family move this week and that's been fun. I like when people ask us to help with things. When we ask people if they need help with anything we really mean it. It was fun to help them pack and get them moved.

There is a less active in our ward that we meet with once a week. She is so nice and we love meeting with her. She sent us a card in the mail telling us how much she appreciated our friendship. She said she felt happy that we cared when no one else did and that it makes her want to believe again. I think its so important to just love people and eventually who knows maybe they will come back to the church. It felt so great to get that card from her and it made me feel like we are making some sort of a difference.

We met with Mike Sullivan on Friday night and there family. He was telling us how he bought a hot dog cart and wants to sell hot dogs like they do in the City. Of course I asked him to demonstrate to us with his New York accent "Get your Hot Dogs here!" It was funny! The lesson went great, his wife Kathy and his recently returned missionary son sat in. We talked about faith and we came to the conclusion that he just needs to start reading the Book of Mormon. Is great when his family can participate and bear there testimony, I believe that helps a lot. We asked him if he would come again to church this Sunday and he said he would! YAY! His wife Kathy said, "how do you do that?" I'm not sure how we keep getting him to church, but its a great thing!

We picked up a new investigator last week and met with him on Thursday. His name is Dave and he is an older man in his 60's. We can barley get a lesson in when we meet with him because he loves to talk and tell stories about his days growing up on the farm. He is really nice though! He believes in the Book of Mormon, but won't come to church. In the beginning of the lesson we asked him if he would come to church and he said because of health reasons he couldn't. The lesson went on and he began to tell us how when he was younger his parents would invite missionaries in the home. He started talking about his mom and he got really emotional. We told him that we believe his mom had led us to him. At the end of the lesson he turned to us and said, "I'm coming to church on Sunday!' YAY! We were excited! Maybe his mom is waiting for him to do her work!

So Timmia is the 11 year old that we set a baptism date for. We had a lesson this week going over the baptism questions and the elders stopped by so they could get her interview done. After the interview Elder Matongi my District leader was really impressed with her testimony. I think Timmia's grandmother really loved the elders because once they came over she got really excited about coming to church. Hmm.. guess she won't find out till she comes to our ward and learn that the elders aren't in our ward. haha So after the baptism interview we were all really excited for her baptism. The next day we get a call from our ward mission leader saying they want to make sure they set her up for success. The bishop wants to meet with her and her mom before. So I guess the baptism is being held off till that happens. I know she is ready, but we have to respect what the Bishop wants because he does know best. So it was kind of a bummer, but I know it will happen, I'm just not sure when!

Sunday morning at 6am our phone starts to ring and its Melanie. She had been up all night reading conference talks and had been patiently waiting for 6am to call us. She had read the talk that was in the priesthood session about Missions by Elder Anderson. She then told us how she wants to serve a mission and she was asking us what you had to do to be a missionary. It was early, but we both started screaming. haha She hasn't even been baptized yet and she is talking about wanting to go on a mission. During church she leaned over to us and said, "Do you think we can set up a date I can look towards for my baptism." I'm pretty sure that's the only time an investigator will set the date before we do. We had been planning on doing that with her that day. She is amazing! During church she was making all these amazing comments, it was like she was already a member. She is amazing and she is one of those people you know will make a difference in the church. I feel so blessed to have met her! Its fun because she is our own age so its easy to relate. We set her baptism date for June 25th, my last weekend in Glenville if I get transferred. I'm so excited for her and I can't wait for her to be baptized!

This Sunday was a little crazy at church. We planned on 5 investigators coming and only three showed up. Dave, Mike, and Melanie. Me and Sister Zwick sang in church so we tried to use that as an excuse to get people to come and it did work on Mike and Dave so that was good. We sang The Olive Tree and it was really good. I think people liked it a lot. Mike came up to us afterwards and said, "WOW..you both sounded like angels.. I didn't know you had that in you!" It was funny! Dave really enjoyed it and I"m glad he came, sadly he didn't stay for all three hours. During Gospel Principles mike made a comment about charity by using a scripture. I was so proud and happy that he felt comfortable to do so. It was an amazing Sunday!

I feel so blessed to be a missionary and share the gospel with others. It makes me happy to see others find happiness! We are so lucky to have the gospel in our lives!

Love you all,

Sister Stacey

Random Pictures of the week

pic 1) New york has really big beautiful rivers this is one that is by our house.

pic 2) Watch dog in the ghetto (I thought this was funny)

pic 3) Another beautiful picture of the river at sunset

pic 4) Last week our district was going to go bowling, but it was closed. so we went to the park. It was fun!

pic 5) This is an older lady we meet with once a week. She can't get to church so we visit with her. She is so cute! Her name is Sally

Happy (late) Mothers Day!

2011-05-10T17:21:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,
First of all I would love to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my wonderful father! I will be thinking of him all day! This week was another interesting week. My companion and I didn't have the car on Tuesday so we enjoyed the opportunity to ride our bikes again. This time our tires were pumped so we were able to make it to our appointment. The women we met was so happy we road our bikes to still make it to the lesson. She had done all her readings before hand and was so excited to talk about them. It took us 40 minutes to get to her house which wasn't bad at all. It was actually fun and the weather was really nice. We might actually do it more often even if we have the car. So lucky me on Wed morning after our run I went into my room and on my bed was a little bug. I yelled.. "SISTER!" Sure enough it was a bed bug. That was it..I'm not sleeping there anymore.These bugs just won't go away! We called our mission office and the landlord was going to get an exterminator to come on Friday. That means two more nights with the bugs.. I was actually considering sleeping in the car. That day was wasted to cleaning our apartment and getting it ready for the exterminator. We spent all day washing our clothes again. I would rather be out teaching people the gospel. The exterminator came, but there is no guarantee that the bugs will go away. The spray only kills the live ones not the eggs. I sleep with long pants that tuck into my socks. I sleep with a flash light so if I feel something crawling on me I can find it in the night. I usually wake up in the middle of the night and once that happens I'm to scared to fall back asleep. When the exterminator came he basically sounded like they will never go away. He said they live off of our blood and will be anywhere we are.(hmm thanks thats comforting!) It takes me extra long to get dressed in the morning because I have to check all my clothes to make sure bugs aren't on them. Its not a fun way to live at all! If ANYONE knows how to get rid of them let me know! I can't live like this for two more months! Ewwww Wednesday night we had a great night with Mike Sullivan. He and his family made us a great dinner and we had a great lesson about the desire of our hearts. We read the talk in Conference by Desire I dont' remember who it was by at the moment. It was a great lesson. I think that we first have to have a desire before wanting to know if something is true. So that is what we are working on. I'm not kidding I love their family. At dinner all we do is just laugh and laugh. Mike has one of those contagious laughs that once you hear it you have to laugh. When the time comes to be transferred leaving them will be like leaving my own family. The Lord has really blessed us this week because of the bed bugs. We picked up one new investigator and we got three investigators at church on Sunday. It was amazing! Timmia finally came and I believe she was happy to be back and going. I think she is getting excited for her baptism. We changed her date to the 21st because we wanted her to come to church a little bit more. But its still on and were both really excited. It will be Sister Zwicks last baptism of her mission. Sad! :( This week we went to the grocery store to buy grocery bags for our clothes and this women approached us. She saw our name tag and saw that it said Jesus and she started asking questions. You could tell she had a strong belief in Christ. It was weird because people usually dont' approach us. We chatted with her for about 20 minutes and she was nice. She told us that she could see the Spirit of Jesus in us. We told her about our church and she then backed down. She didnt' want anything to do with it, but was nice about it. She wouldn't give us her information so we left. Two days later we went to walmart (completley diff store) and as we were walking in we saw her. Coincidence... I THINK NOT! We started talking to her again and she was again so nice and chatty. She told us about her daughter and family. After awhile she asked for our number. Were not sure if she wants just a friend thing or if she would really listen to what our gospel has to offer, but we took the number. I'm pretty sure the Spirit lead us to her twice and I hope she will open up to hear our message. So I thought that was a cool story. That usually doesnt' happen...seeing a person like that twice in one week.. So cool! We had a great lesson wtih Melanie on Saturday. She is the girl our age who goes to Union College. We brought Sister Anderson a lady from the ward who is in charge of the single adults. So we think were going to try and get her around lds kids her age. She was so excited by the idea and I can't wait. I think this will help her with her Word of wisdom problems to be around good kids. At first she wasn't going to meet with us because she was going to go to this concert on campus, but she called us back and told us she needed spiritual guidance in her life. She is so cute and I love being around her. She also is amazing at writing poems and performing them. (I thought of Nick) She performed some poems for us and it was awesome! I just love her so much! It was a great lesson! Of course I didn't forget it was Mothers day and I did call home. I'm not going to lie I was a little nervous. I didn't want to get off the phone with them and be homesick. Its my first call and I believe the first call is the hardest. It was so great to have them pick up the phone and hear all their voices. It seemed just like yesterday I was with them all. It was so great to talk about the people here in New York and talk about missionary work. I also LOVED that they were asking questions about people I have met with. It makes me feel so good that they read my emails and follow along. It makes me feel like there with me everyday when I'm with these people. Its amazing how much I love my family! I feel so blessed to have their support! I thought it would be sad, but I just realized how lucky I am to be here and there support really helped me to refocuse and get out there to preach the gospel. I love my family and it was so so so great to talk to them and hear from them! Its weird to think that the next time I hear their voices will be in December. It was a great Mothers day! I'm so thankful for my mother and all she does for me! I feel so blessed to have her support and encouragement. She always gives the best advice and I consider her one of my best friends! I love you mom! Well I love you all! I feel like I'm repeating myself because I talked about most of this stuff in my phone call yesterday. I'm so happy I'm a missionary! I'm so happy that I can serve the Lord and be an instrument in his hands! I'm also grateful for phone calls home on Mothers day! Our Mission President told us that the numbers always go down the week after Mothers day. Well me and Sister Zwick are going to prove him wrong! Our numbers are going to be high this week!

Love you,
Sister Stacey

pic 1: Its a rule we have to wear bike helmets..

pic 2: Riding our bikes! YAY! Were happy the trees are starting to bloom!

pic 3: I don't know why I'm smiling. I was actually made that we were having to do this. Hopefully no bugs will get out of these!

pic 4: This is one of Sister Zwicks bug bites!

pic 5: We found the cutest Crepe restaurant. You best believe I got nutella on mine! :)

pic 6: This doesn't show all of them only some, but you can see some of the bites she got. Eww

First Zone Conference!

2011-05-03T22:53:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

This week I went to my first Zone Conference and it was amazing. I'm not kidding my mission president is an amazing teacher! It was great to be with other missionaries for the day. It comforts me to know that its not just me and Sister Zwick taking on New York by ourselves. It feels like that sometimes when we don't see other missionaries. My mission president went to an all mission President conference in D.C. and they were all asked to train us all on the same thing. I'm pretty sure that my mission president taught it the best over all other presidents. We talked about fufilling our purpose in the gathering of Israel. He talked about the Abrahamic covenant and how part of our covenant is to preach the gospel to the world. It was a great feeling to know that I'm fulfilling that covenant that I made to preach the gospel! Zone Conference is AMAZING! I learned so much and afterwards you feel so pumped to get out there and start teaching people. Me and Sister Zwick got really motivated to find more investigators and start teaching more lessons. I really love going to Zone Conferences and I can't wait for the next one.

Before I came on my mission all my buddies would tell me that a mission is filled with a lot of up's and down's. You can't really experience it or come to know what its like until you go on a mission. This week we went to go check on an investigator we hadn't seen in awhile. The first time we met her we knew we were led their by the spirit. She was so cute and so much fun to talk to and she was so eager to learn. She instantly became one of our favorite people. So we went to her house and we saw her about to walk out of her house and she saw us and said, "not today girls" and slammed the door in our faces. I was crushed! I didn't believe that she really had done that, we were her friend. It was really hard to let that go. That agency really stinks sometimes..haha Its hard because we knew we were led to her by the spirit. As a missionary you get to in some sense feel how our Heavenly Father feels when these people turn us away. I barley know these people and I'm so sad to see them do that, imagine how our Heavenly Father feels. Imagine how he feels when people turn his gospel away everyday. I don't know how he does it. I feel as if he is right there with us when we get sad about someone slamming the door in our face.

We got Mike a part member investigator to come to church again. That was exciting! We couldn't on the other hand get our investigator who has a baptism date to church. I think one of our biggest struggle is getting investigators to church. Church is so important and when they go they can feel the spirit and they progress so much faster, but when they don't come you can never move forward. Its so hard to get them to church. So any RM's if you have any great suggestions let me know!

This Saturday was AMAZING! We had back to back lessons all day long! It was seriously heaven! It was the best day ever! Teaching is the best part of the mission, but sadly that's not what we do all the time. When we don't get help from members we end up having to track or find people on our own and its not always that fun! (haha) It was so great to teach all day! I think our new goal is to try and get enough lessons so we can make everyday like that! :)

This week we met with this guy who probably isn't invested in getting baptized. He is non-denominational, so basically he believes in everything as long as it goes a long with the bible. It was so hard to teach him because he just wanted to learn out of the Bible. When he first wanted to meet with us he asked if we wouldn't bring the Book of Mormon. I laughed because there would really be no point at all in meeting with him if we didn't bring the B.O.M. It was just funny, but don't worry you best believe we brought the Book of Mormon. I was a little nervous about meeting with him because I don't know the bible very well. The lesson was civil and learning was on both ends. The whole time we were teaching he asked us where we got our information from and we would pull out the bible and show him, but he would say "no that's not what that scripture means." He looked at the bible to much in a literal way. Later on in the lesson he told us he believed that the Body, Soul and Spirit were three different things and then we asked him, "where does it say that?" and he says, "well I don't know" It was so funny! These people. At the end of the lesson he refused to read out of the book of mormon. He had a book that talked about the Book of Mormon and he said by reading that, that was all he needed to know. Oh man it was hard to meet with him, but he was nice and we did pretty well at knowing our stuff. I was very proud of myself. In those situations you just need to bear your testimony.

It was another great week! I still have bed bugs in my apartment, but we got to the point were sick of dealing with it. We just want to do missionary work. Who knows what will happen, I do know that no one is going to want to be my companion next transfer. haha I miss and love you all!

Sister Stacey

P.S. Letters are very much appreciated! I love hearing from people!

Pic 1and 2: We offered to talk a Less actives dog on a walk. Poor dog never gets out of the apartment. The dog was so happy!

pic 3: There is a college in my area. This was a building on campus. I thought it was so beautiful! It reminded me of Israel

pic 4: My first Zone Conference

Bed Bugs and Baptism Date...Bittersweet week!

2011-04-26T10:39:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wow, where do I start. This week has been crazy! Remember last week when I told you my companion was getting weird bites all over her body..well we figured out where it was coming from. Last Monday we ate at the Dinkel's one of our favorite families in the ward. Both of them served foreign missions so they were telling us stories. They started to talk about gross bugs that were on their mission..so we decided to tell them that Sister Zwick had been getting weird bites. They believed it was Bed Bugs(a problem New York is having). We went to the Internet to research and they showed us pictures of bed bug bites and they looked exactly like sister Zwicks. They started to read the description of where they come from and what they do.These bed bugs hide in your clothes and your bed and come out at night and bite you..ewww He read this part that stuck out to us saying they come out to bite you right before dawn. We left our dinner appointment freaked out and feeling itchy. That night was probably the worse nights sleep I have ever had so far on my mission. Me and sister Zwick woke up every hour waiting for dawn to come, because we knew that when dawn would come they would come out of the bed to bite us. We were freaked out! The next morning we called my mission Presidents wife who told us, sure enough you have bed bugs. She told us that we should take all our clothes and go wash them and spray down our whole apartment and beds with this poison stuff. We called a member who lives by us and she was more than happy to help us. With out question she had us come over to wash our clothes. We went in and out because we had lessons we had to teach. That night we went to a members home to celebrate passover. I was so excited, I hadn't celebrated passover since I was in Israel. The member used to be Jewish so he was able to do it just like I remembered. (I was in heaven) We were all sitting around the table reading in Exodus about the different plagues that occurred. Sister Zwick was reading in chapter 8 and she started reading the verse where it says, "And the river shall bring forth frogs..which shall go up and come into thine house, and into they bedchamber, and upon thy bed..." at this very scripture we both started to laugh. We had to be serious because it was in the middle of passover, but all we could think about was how our apartment has nasty bed bugs everywhere and this scripture relates too well not to laugh. It was one of those moments. After passover we went home to spray our apartment and the member Sister Maughn let us spend the night so we wouldn't have to sleep with the poison. I'm not kidding that night we slept the best we have since we came out on our missions. It was amazing and we didn't have to worry about bugs biting us. The next day we had to wash more clothes and we went home thinking they would all be gone. Two days later we saw some more. We really don't know what else to do. So we still sleep in terror waiting for the little bugs to bite. Now I fully understand the phrase.."Sleep Tight...Don't let the bed bugs bite" I feel so blessed to have such awesome members around to help us. They have been so willing to help! I really don't know what we are going to do, every morning I have to check my clothes before putting them on just in case a bug is stuck to it. I have been thinking about my two older sisters and how they probably would have literally died by now. hahah Its been such a crazy week, I really hope we can get rid of these bugs, because its been really hard to focus. I just want to be able to come home at night and relax, but instead I'm always worried about where I walk and sit. gross...I'm so glad I'm not serving in a South America mission. If I can't handle this..I would have not been able to survive those missions. haha

Despite the bed bugs we had the best blessing come. I SET MY FIRST BAPTISM DATE!!! We met with a 11 year old girl this week named Timmia. We have been meeting with her for awhile and we felt it was time to set her with a date. We first asked her when she would like to be baptized and she wanted to do it on her birthday..which is Feb. 24th..um.. too far.. we then were able to get the date to May 14th. She was so excited and she said the sweetest prayer afterwards about how she was so excited about baptism and that she hopes we can find more people to teach like her. I couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the day, I was so excited! I really hope she will stick to her date and we can get her baptized! It just made me so happy! The Lord is really watching out for us.

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend. We ate at the Bishops home Saturday night and we were able to decorate some eggs. I'm all about holiday stuff, so that was so much fun! Easter Sunday was amazing! We ate at a members home for dinner and that was so much fun. Afterwards we went over the Sullivans for some dessert and spiritual message. I'm pretty sure the Sullivans are my second family here in Glenville. Sister Zwick and I just love going to their house and visiting with them. Sister Sullivan is awesome and always fun to be around and of course we love teaching her husband. Last night their oldest son did a spiritual lesson and we watched the conference talk by Elder Holland called "None were with him" If you haven't heard that one, I very much recommend it. The spirit was so strong! It was such an amazing talk that portrayed Christ and his last days beautifully. It really made you think of how he must have felt and how thankful we should be to him. I thought about when I was in Israel and I was able to walk the last week of his life. I remember feeling sad when we started in the garden of Gethsemane and it grew to almost anger when he was tortured and then we ended our day in the Garden Tomb and then I became happy. I left that day feeling happy because "He is Risen" he was resurrected. That's what we should focus on and be happy about. This Easter Sunday was amazing and its always great to reflect on our Savior Jesus Christ and remember all the sacrifices he made for us so we never have to be alone.

Despite the bugs this week was a great week and I was able to set my first baptismal date which made up for everything. I'm so excited about that! I also was thinking of my best friend Ali all day on the 21st who got married. CONGRATS! I love you and I'm so happy for you! Hopefully we can figure out this bed bug problem!

Love you all,

Sister Stacey

pic 1) the bed bug

pic 2) sis zwick spraying the bugs

ewwww gross....

pic 3) Decorating easter eggs wiht Sarah the bishops daughter. She loves when we come over!

pic 4) Me at Passover mean this is the sedar plate

pic 5) Easter Morning with the eggs we decorated!

Happy Easter!

2011-04-19T09:01:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

This week was kind of a bummer week with lessons. It felt like every lesson we had set up with someone they would cancel on us or not remember when we showed up for the appointment. Its hard not to get discouraged when that happens. I don't think these people realize that this is all we do every day all day long. (hahaha) They don't realize that we get excited to meet with them and teach them, its what we look forward to in the morning. haha We had some great people lined up to teach this week and most of them fell through. I thought of Chapter 8 in Alma. Alma goes to the city Ammonihah to preach the gospel, but when he gets there and starts preaching he is persecuted and cast out of the city. He leaves the city feeling.."sorrow and an anguish of soul" (v.14), but then an angel appears to him and tells him to go back again and preach unto the people. So Alma goes back and finds Amulek who is prepared by the spirit to learn from Alma, then together they go preach to the people. I love this chapter because it reminds me as a missionary to never give up. That I should keep trying to find people then the Lord will eventually give me an Amulek someone who has been prepared by the Spirit to hear the words of the Lord. This chapter gave me comfort and like it says in the scripture.. "caused me to rejoice!"

Later in the week we did meet with a family who I believe are prepared. Conference morning we went to an appointment, but the women wasn't there. As we were walking back to our car we met a women (Precious) with her two boys. We started to talk to her and she told us she just moved here and was looking for a church to go to. We met with her and her boys this weekend. We taught the message of the restoration and her boys were willing to participate and read scriptures with us, it was so great! We met her fiance Simba who was incredibly nice. I have a great feeling about them and they committed for sure to attend church Easter Sunday! I'm very excited for next weekend!

Sunday was a great sabbath day! We had two investigators come to church. One was Melanie, she is girl our age going to Union college. She loves church and is very prepared for the message. It was great to see her at church. The other investigator we had that was so exciting was one of our investigators who is the only non-member in his family. He has been meeting with missionaries for over 15 years. We called him the night before to remind him and couldn't wait to get to church to see him there. We waited by the door and we saw his wife and he wasn't there and we got really sad, but when she saw us she said, "don't worry he is coming." We went and sat down and 10 minutes later he walked in and sat with his family. I wish you could have seen our faces. We both had the biggest smiles! We were so happy! We made sure afterwards to get him to Sunday school and with great fellowship from one of the ward members we got him to come to class. The lesson was on sacrifice and it was seriously one of the most powerful lessons I have ever attended at church before. We had two less actives there as well and it was so great to talk about Christ and the sacrifice he made for us. It was a beautiful lesson and I'm so grateful we had an investigator there to hear it. Afterwards we asked if he would stay for priesthood and he was already planning on it. It was a great feeling to get him there to church. He works every other Sunday so we hope to get him there again in a couple of weeks! Our prayers were surely answered that day!

Well I'm excited for Easter Sunday and I hope that we can all remember our Savior and what he has done for us. I just encourage everyone to read Alma 7. "And he shall go forth suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind...he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people.." Two years ago this Easter Sunday I sat in the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem Israel, I remember trying to imagine how Mary felt the day she saw Christ after he was resurrected. I have a testimony that Jesus is the Christ. He did die for us that we can return to our Heavenly Father. Christ is the central to our gospel and he is central to Heavenly Fathers plan of salvation. If it wasn't for Christ we would not be able to repent, we would dwell in our sins forever, but by the atonement we can be free of sin and live in happiness and peace. This is a great message that we should all know and apply in our lives. I'm so grateful for Him!

Have a wonderful Easter Sunday!

Love,

Sister Stacey!

Pic 1: They just opened a the first Frozen Yogurt place here in glenville area. We went during our dinner break and it was PACKED with people. Frozen yogurt places are not popular out east. Me and Sister Zwick were really excited though to get some!

Pic 2: Sister Zwick has been getting weird bug bites every night. So we think we might have bed bugs. So we had to clean out our room and beds. Not very fun! Well hopefully that helps! haha

Pic 3: We go visit this Older women in a home and when we went that day they said the floor was on restriction from vomiting. Gross! We still went and visited her!

First transfer is over!

2011-04-11T11:33:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

Another great week here in Glenville New york! This weeks schedule was a little different. At the end of our missions we get to go to Palmyra and go to the temple and visit the Sacred Grove. Well my companion sister Zwick got to do that this week. So we drove down to Utica monday night and stayed at the mission home. On tuesday when she went to the temple I went to Fayettville for the day. There were four of us sisters blitzing the area. That morning me and Sister Pitts went around together. Sister Pitts was in my district in the MTC. My mission President seemed very excited to have two "rookies" out together. It was funny to think that a month ago we were in the MTC and now we were out knocking doors together. We did pretty well, but it felt like no one was home and was kind of a dead morning. Then in the afternoon I went with sister Pitts companion and we went to lessons. We went to a lesson to teach this guy Larry. When we went into his apartment there was music all over the place and he played us some music on the guitar it was cool. It was definitely weird teaching a lesson without sister Zwick. Later that day we went to teach a lesson to this guy and he wasn't home, but.. his son answered the door and seemed really interested in learning. It made me sad that I couldn't teach him again.. haha It was weird teaching in a different area and with different people. The whole day I missed my home (Glenville). I missed the people I was teaching.. I was so excited to go home! At the end of the day I was SOOO happy to see Sister Zwick. I missed her so much, I'm not saying I didn't like serving with the other sisters, but I was excited to see my companion again. We went back to Glenville the next day and I was sooo happy to be home! Its going to be so hard when the time comes for me to leave that place!

Exciting news! We met this girl Melanie a couple weeks ago and we finally got to meet with her this week. She has some friends in the ward she comes to church with so she just needs the discussions. We met with her on Friday. She lives on the campus of Union College. It was weird walking around all these students my same age. Side note story; Sister Zwick and I were walking down this street and this college boy was walking right towards us. He was our age and she turned me and said, "you got this sister." I looked at her and said "no way!" I was so nervous to talk to him and if it wasn't for Sister Zwick starting the conversation I would have walked right past. It wasn't so bad after we started to talk to him and turned out to be fine. I'm starting to think a college town would not be a fun place to serve. It would make me too nervous..haha I should probably start to work on that nervousness. haha Anyways, we met with her and the first thing she talked to us about was the Spirit. She started explaining this feeling she gets when she goes to church. This was my first time ever hearing someone explain the Spirit, it was so amazing! I couldn't stop smiling because I knew what it was and I was so excited to tell her what it was. The lesson went amazing and she was so excited to learn about Joseph Smith and the first vision. When we got to the part about Joseph praying in the sacred grove she stopped us and said "I'm having that feeling right now!" The spirit was so strong and I knew she felt it! It was a great reward as a missionary to hear her say that! I'm excited to meet with her and I believe she will be my first baptism!

This week we also met with a woman named Delea. She is so cute and has 3 kids. Every time we go over there to teach her, her kids are so involved and love it when we come over. We even had the little girl give the prayer and she was so excited. We taught about the Plan of Salvation and pressed the importance of having our families together forever and she really liked that idea. We told her to watch conference and the time she happened to flip it on was during President Monson's talk on temples. How perfect! She is still hesitant on coming to church which is a bummer! We want her to come because we know her kids would love it! So we'll see where that goes!

So this week is transfer week. Saturday night we get the transfer calls telling us if were staying or leaving. Me and sister Zwick were anxiously waiting by the phone. When the phone rang my heart dropped... I DO NOT like these transfer calls they're nerve racking! We answered and the Elders asked if we had any guesses. We guessed that we were both staying and we were right! We were both so relieved! This means I will be here until July for sure and sister Zwick will finish her mission here. I don't know if I can handle 12 more of those calls! haha They can be scary!

Well another exciting week here in Glenville New York! I miss you all at home and hope life is going as great as mine! Apparently it's the summer to get married. I have yet to hear back from my best friends who are getting married Lindsey, Snarr and Mike! So write me! I want to hear about it! Other than that hope everything is going great back home!

Love you all,

Sister Stacey

Pic 1: We had to take this one

Pic 2: We went to the City for the weekend.. jk there is a mini Statue of liberty downtown Schenctady

pic 3: I almost didn't recognize it because i never use my first name anymore.. thought this was cool. Now i have picture with a jennnifer rd in New york and a Stacey Ln in Jackson Hole wyoming. haha

Pic 4: There are so many beautiful churchs in upper stake new york. This was in Fayetteville my day with outsister Zwick

General Conference is like Christmas to Missionaries!

2011-04-04T11:42:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

This week has been such an amazing week, but I'm going to first talk about General Conference because it is fresh in my mind. They say that General Conference is equivalent to Christmas to missionaries. Well that statement is very true. I was so excited for Conference I could barely sleep the night before. My companion and I committed someone to come to the Saturday morning session. We were really excited, but she didnt' have a ride so Saturday morning we were calling people to ask if they could give her one to the church. We finally found some people to give her one and we planned that they would pick us up at the church and then go pick her up and come back. We waited and waited and they didn't come and it was about 11:08. We called them and they said they thought it was for tomorrow, but they could still help out. In a hurry we drove to their house and knocked on the door. The wife said her husband had gone to the bank and would be back then we could leave. We waited very patiently and when he returned we got in the car. For some reason the whole family had to come and they had to put up the back seats, but it was filled with stuff so we then started frantically cleaning out their car. Again let me remind you that its about 11:40 and conference starts at Noon. We drove to this laddies house and we waited for her to get ready. Once we were in the car we started heading back to the church but the member driving kept taking the longest routes to get there. We were finally at our last light ready to turn right and once it turned green he went the wrong way. My companion and I had to just laugh. God must have a very funny sense of humor, he was testing our patience's that morning for sure. We finally made it to the church and were about 15 minutes late to the first half. It turned out great and our investigator really enjoyed it. I think she really enjoyed the talks given on women and family. After the last session on Saturday we went to a member's home for dinner. Their son is serving in the Denver North Mission so its always fun to have dinner at their home. We walked into their house and Sister Smith turned to me and she said, "Isn't that so great about the Fort Collins Temple?" I turned to her and I said, "WHAT?!" Given my situation this morning I had missed the first part of the session where they had announced that Fort Collins would be getting a temple. I thought she was joking and they had to take me to their computer and show me the part where they had announced it. I started screaming and I felt really embarrassed because I started crying. I have never been so happy before for something. I couldn't believe it! I GET A TEMPLE IN MY HOMETOWN! This was the greatest news I could ever hear. I wish you could ask my companion, but the whole rest of the night I couldn't stop smiling and every time I would think about it, I would start screaming. I'm so grateful for all the strong members in Northern Colorado, because of them we are able to open a temple! We have been truly blessed! I can't wait to see how the nonmembers react to it. Fort Collins just got THAT more amazing! I didn't think it could get any cooler, but WOW was I wrong! I'm going to start crying again this is so amazing! I'm sad I missed it but it was worth it because we got an investigator to the session! I LOVE TEMPLES!!!
I loved conference! I don't think we realize how lucky we are to have a living prophet on the earth today! He is so in tune with the spirit and God Speaks through him. Think of that, God speaks through him. Everything we were taught yesterday was from God. We are so blessed to have that in our lives! I loved the talk about be as a child, I loved all the talks on service. I like when Uchtdorf said, "God does notice us, but it is usually through another person he meets their needs, therefore it is vital that we serve." So great! Service is so important! I loved the talks on family and marriage. Its so important to keep our families centered on Christ in these last days. I loved the Prophets message on Temples. As missionaries I have that desire for people to get to the temple. I see so many families who haven't been sealed and it makes me so sad. No matter the sacrifice GET to the temple. The story he told in the beginning was so touching. It shows us how important it is to go to the temple with our families. No matter the obstacles we need to get there. I also loved Hollands talk on conference and the purpose of it. These apostles and Prophet give us warnings. I loved when he said they are mortal messengers with angelic messages. I also loved his sweet testimony on the Prophet. We are so blessed to have President Monson and we should realize how much he does for the church. We are so lucky to have such amazing prophet and apostles to guide us through these latter days! Of course I just loved Scotts talk, me and every other women who were listening. (lol) He is just amazing and so sweet when he talks about his wife. I also was very excited to see that the BYU-Idaho choir was singing in conference. They were amazing and it was fun to see my Choir director. They were so amazing and it was great to see my school there! I don't have to much time so I can't talk about all of conference, but those were some of my favorites. I just love conference and I'm already looking forward to the next one!
This week I went to Return and Report. The district I came in with from the MTC met in Utica and we had a conference. It was great to see all my friends again and see how they have grown! My Mission President is amazing! He taught seminary and institute for 30 plus years so he really knows how to teach. When he teaches us he really pumps you up for the work. He knows the right things to say and is an amazing teacher. It was so great to see everyone again and be taught on how to be a better missionary. Every time I leave those conferences I feel refreshed and ready to get out there and work some more! I'm so glad I'm here!
One last story that happened to me and my companion this week that was amazing. On Wednesday we planned on going to Schenectady but I kept thinking that I didn't want to go there. We had spent the last couple of days there and I felt that we should spend some time in Glenville. We changed our plans and typed in a less active into our GPS and started on our way to her house. While driving we hit some road work and we then had to detour into a neighborhood. We were on the road of a former investigator that we have tried to see before, but they were never home. We decided we should stop and check on them again. We knocked on her door and Amiee answered the door. She knew who we were and let us in. She was so cool and so much fun to talk to. She kept telling us how that morning she had been feeling sad and then we knocked on the door. It was so amazing! We talked to her for awhile and her husband got home and they fed us dinner. Weirdly the member we were suppose to eat with that night had cancelled. They were the coolest couple ever and they were so spiritually prepared for us. I felt like they were already members! We sat down with them and watched some movies on mormon.org and you could tell they felt the spirit! They recently had a death in the family so we showed the Jenny video. It was amazing! I know the Spirit led us there on purpose. On our drive home the road work that had detoured us to her house was gone. WOW.. we were totally led by the spirit to her house! Its amazing! I thought of the talk by Elder Bednar about the spirit of revelation. Sometimes we are being led by the spirit and we don't even know it. This was a great example of that! It was a great experience and I will never forget it!
This week has been very action packed! General Conference weekend is the best! It was so great to know that my family was watching it at the same time I was. The happiness it brings, its just amazing! I can't wait to start using these talks in my lessons with less actives and investigators. I love the Spirit and so happy we were led to Amiee. I'm excited to see what the next month brings!

I love you all,
Sister Stacey!

YAY FOR FORT COLLINS TEMPLE!

Pic 1: We found the Cullens house! No vampires though..

Pic 2: that was at Return and Report.. my friends from the MTC with their new Companions

Pic 3: There are so many beautiful churches in Schenectady so here is a pic by one

Hello From New York! (Week 4 in the Field)

2011-03-29T07:43:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,
First off it sounds like my Dad did an amazing job in Chicago. I'm sad that I didn't hear his speech, but I can only imagine how amazing it was. I'm so glad that everyone went to support him! Even though he doesn't want to admit it, but I think it really meant a lot to him!
Well being in New York (Jimmer's Home State) there has been so much talk of BYU basketball its hard to stay away from it. Everyone keeps telling me that I need to use Jimmer as a resource to get people to learn more about the gospel. This thought always enters my mind, but lately we have been teaching the older crowd of people who probably would careless about Jimmer being mormon. Until the day we were in Schnetcady (which is ghetto-ville.) We were walking down the street and these three tall black guys in their 20's came walking towards us. I was nervous to stop them, but Sister Zwick didn't think twice she went right up to them and started talking about the church. They were so nice and we told them about what Mormons were and we gave them a mormon.org card. They were on their way to play basketball and started walking away. I then remembered the thought to use Jimmer as a resource and these boys were the perfect candidates to use it on. They were already down the street and I turn to sister Zwick and we yelled at them across the street.. "HEY!.....Do you know Jimmer Ferdette?" they yelled back "Yeah Yeah..he's cool!." We replied with a loud yelling voice "HE'S MORMON!" They nodded their heads "O cool!" and went on their way. We felt very accomplished having use the Jimmer resource in our teaching!
BYU has been the talk of the town unti after they lost. We were eating at the Bishops house Thursday night and he very kindly gave us the score before we left. It was hard to concentrate knowing that if they won this game they would make it to the next round. They said they would call us later that night to give us the final score. That night after planning me and Sister Zwick were waiting some what patiently by the phone. When the phone rang we jumped to the phone only to hear that it went into over time. We hung up the phone and were like screaming in our apartment. We then waited for the next call only to hear that they lost. Don't tell my dad, but I was secretly hopping they would lose so I wouldn't have to miss anymore games and I wouldn't have to be tortured hearing about them. hehe "SORRY!" lol My dad will probably never forgive me for saying that. Anyways, it was pretty funny that everyone was excited about it.
Even though we were sad with the loss of BYU we had a good week with teaching. We had an investigator come to church. She is a friend of a young women in our ward. It was so exciting that she wanted to come and we hope to start teaching her this week. We also received a referral from Head Quarters. As a missionary referrals are the best! We went and found this guy because he had asked for a Book of Mormon. When we started talking to him you could tell the spirit had already been working with him before we arrived. He had been trying to search for the truth and then we came along. We were so excited and started giving a short 5 minute review of the Restoration. I don't think he fully understands that we as missionaries come and teach, because he didn't want us to come. So in those 5 minutes I gave a brief description of everything. It was so amazing how strong the spirit was. I could feel the words come out of my mouth so smoothly and simply in a way he could understand. I had never explained it that well before. I was so excited to tell him everything we knew. He agreed with us that he thought there should be a modern day prophet. Its been really cool to tell people that Conference is next weekend and that the Prophet is going to speak to the whole world. It really catches their attention. After we talked to him and bore our testimony he told us he was going to start reading that night. We thought we should give him a week and we will talk to him next week. Its so hard to be patient, you just want to start teaching them everything right there. I can't wait to see where that will go.
This week I officially made a Mormon.org account so you should all try to find me. I encourage everyone if you don't have one to go make one. They are so cool and as a missionary its so helpful! SO GO MAKE ONE! :)
Well this Friday is Return and Report where after a month in the field we go back and have a meeting with my district from the MTC. I'm excited to see everyone and how they are doing!
Also while I was in the MTC KSL did a video on the MTC choir. They are planning on showing it in the middle of one of the Conferences so make sure to watch out for me and tell me if you see me in the video!
Thanks for all the letters and support! I love you all and its been so great to hear from some of you!
The church is SO TRUE!!!

Love,
Sister Stacey

Update from Glenville New York!

2011-03-22T20:05:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

Another week has gone by and I can't believe it! This week was another great week! It finally started to get warm out and I wasn't wearing boots. It was the talk of the town, how nice it was getting. Well don't get your hopes up New Yorkers because Sister Zwick and I woke up to snow snow snow! I swear its never going to stop. For some reason every P-day it snows and tries to prevent us from getting to our computers. Take that snow because I made it to the Library! Speaking of the talk of the town everyone keeps talking about BYU basketball. On Thursday night we had enrichment and they were updating everyone on the scores. Also yesterday one of the counselors in the mission presidency related his talk on BYU basketball. I'm not gonna lie its been kinda tough to listen to that. Thankful for my grandparents and my dad I also get updates, but man it sounds like they are doing great. Its especially the talk of the town here in upper state New York. Everyone I talk to in the ward has some story about how they use to play Jimmer in stake basketball. Its pretty cool not gonna lie. It would be really cool if he came back for the summer and I some how met him. They don't have sister missionaries in his home town. They took them out and put elders.. :( I think they did it because were all secretly obsessed. hehehe Anyways, Go BYU! Sister Zwick and I had a really hard lesson with a less active this week. She was basically trying to destroy our testimonies and it wasn't very fun. In those moments we just had to bear our testimony and tell her what we believed. Its funny because she hasn't even read the Book of Mormon all the way through. Its really hard because you know it would bless their lives so much. We are meeting with her in a couple weeks and I'm pretty nervous about it. I hope it goes better the second time and hopefully well be strong! So the Elders needed our car for exchanges which meant me and sister Zwick were left on bikes. The area we are in is HUGE and it took us two hours to get to the nearest members home. It was a worthless day of trying to find former investigators and less actives. The area is just too big, but we had fun figuring it out. Our tires were really low so we stopped by the bishops house and his wife drove us around to find some places. The members here are AWESOME! Hopefully we don't have to do that again because it wasn't very beneficial! The Mission President came this week and taught our district and it was amazing. He really knows his stuff and really knows how to address the concerns of the missionaries. He talked about the importance of using the scriptures and having the spirit as we teach. We talk about what type of missionary we want to be. I know that by the end it just pumped me up. I want to be such a great missionary and I want to do it because the Lord needs me to do it. Forget myself and work! Its always fun to see them and the other missionaries. Thursday night we were trying to find a former investigator and we stopped at this house thinking it was this person. As soon as we were walking up to the door this lady walked out and started to talk to us. We explained who we were and started talking to her about her faith. She said she was a born again Christan and I got really nervous when she said that. They usually push us away right away. She was really opened to us and said she wanted to go to church. Then she became very open with us, telling us her husband had died awhile ago in a car accident. I bore my testimony on the plan of salvation and how she will be able to see her husband again. I asked her if she would like that and she began to cry. We were placed there at that moment only by the spirit. He knew that we needed to find her. She unfortunately didn't show up for church but were going to try and teach her this week. I really hope she listens because I know the gospel will bless her life. I remember as I was bearing my testimony to her I was so happy to be able to comfort her. I was happy to be able to give her answers! We are so lucky to know them and have the gospel!This week sister Zwick and I were able to meet with a less active who is having Word of Wisdom problems. She wants to go to the temple with her family but can't seem to get there and get over her addiction. We asked her to come to church and we told her if she follows the commandments and does her part the Lord will help her and she needs to have faith. We planned on talking to her about faith in the lesson and before we even started she kept talking about faith and how she needed to have it. It was amazing and she came for two hours on Sunday with her family. That was great progress and I think she really wants to get to the temple. She wants to go to the Boston Temple so were going to find her a picture to put in her house to remind her to get there. Just in these past three weeks I have learned that I love to talk to people. I love just meeting people! Its been such a great blessing to have that opportunity. Everyday we meet new people and in every situation no matter what the problems are we can help them. We can help them only because of the gospel. The gospel addresses any situation and answers all questions. Its been so much fun to meet people and get them back on the road to eternal life. I love laughing with them and talking about their lives. Something that I learned is always keep a foot in the door. We as missionaries can keep trying and just love them. If we stay in their lives a little bit maybe in the future they will let us come in the door. Its important we do that with everyone we know. Plant that seed in their lives! Its such a great thing!This week we also found 3 new investigators and I'm really excited about that. The lord really blessed us this weekend. Hopefully we can keep teaching them and bring them closer to Christ. Its taken us a little longer to make our teaching pool bigger because we were both new to the area, but I have a feeling its going to only get bigger. I can't wait for another great week! Hopefully we can make some progress and get closer to some baptisms! I love being a missionary! I love meeting people! I love answering people's questions about the gospel because we always have an answer! Keep up the missionary work at home!

Love,

Sister Stacey