What a Week!

Hey Everyone,

  Cole and Lisa it looks like it was a beautiful day for you two gorgeous people!! Congrats :)

  I can see that you were all super busy and that you didn't have a ton of leftover time, but it looks like the reception looked very nice.  I am glad to see that I was the true superstar tho!! :) Haha. As for me, this last week I just kicked back and took it easy.  Ya know, its not like I had anything big to do.

  Just Kidding.

  Each week I am amazed at how fast Monday rolls around.  It feels like each week is an eternity, and then really it isn't....weird how time moves. 

  Good news I pretty much have our mission scripture memorized.  There a few places that I randomly try to throw in extra words, but it really is an awesome scripture and I love it!!!

  Monday night the families that we ate with threw a mini birthday party for Sister Palmberg.  It was really nice of them.  As a sad sidenote since there were 4 Zone Conferences last week they decided to forgo the weekly Mission call, but good news, I am pretty sure we are back on for it tonight.  It is second only to receiving all of your emails in making my Monday wonderful.

  Happy Birthday Tyson, Jordan, and Sister Palmberg! Tuesday we extended Baptism to one of our investigators, and it was funny he said yeah that sounds good, but I'll have to check my calendar and make sure that I'm available that day.  Haha I'm not 100% sure that he understands the importance of Baptism, but he is willing to do it if he finds out its right, so that is the good news.  We went and visited one of my favorite less actives and she is doing so much better than the last time we visited her.  It is awesome because she told us ever since we came and visited her, she is doing lots better, we had challenged her to work on her prayers, and since she had her attitude and outlook had gotten so much happier, so I am so happy.  It is incredible how such a small thing can make such a big difference.  The family we had dinner with was so much fun.  For dessert Sister Walker had made the homemade oreos, and I'll tell you what they were delicious!! She had frosting and vanilla ice cream, and I would definitely suggest that you all make some and enjoy those fantastic treats.

  Wednesday we had to spend some time updating records, bad news we didn't get completely caught up, but we had to move on with our day, so we did. Since we were home updating I was still there when the mail came, and I had a big surprise, I got a package from my Momma!!  I was so excited to see the same outfit as Karen and Kammie were wearing, and then the treats!! I have thoroughly enjoyed those delectable goldfish.  Who knew that smore ones even existed?? I love them.  My favorite part however was the letters.  I don't think that you all realize how much that really means to me.  It is so awesome to know that people care enough to sit down and write a letter, because I know how busy life is, so I really cannot thank you all enough!!! I love you all so much!  Nothing too big is sticking out to me, so I'll skip to one of the highlights of my week.  I do see that I forgot we taught Heather and her husband was home so he came and joined as well and Bishop Hooper's wife was able to come with us, and it was really good.

  Yay for Thursday! Congrats to Colio and Lisa, but also my day was super awesome I'll have you all know.  Zone Conference was downright phenomenal!!!!  I learned soo soo much, and I was on this Spiritual High, kind of like the MTC all over again.  It was also kind of cool that we got to see President and Sister Porter's kids, who are not serving missions.  I pretty much have 17 pages of notes, if that says anything to you about what I learned.  I obviously can't share everything I learned, so I'm going to pick out a few things that I really really really loved.

  Elder means Defender of the Faith and there are only two groups of people who get to wear that.  Full time missionaries and General Authorities.  That is pretty cool huh? It kind of puts it into perspective for me.  We are the swift messengers that it talks about in the scriptures, President told us that we are the Navy SEALs of the Church.  Our ultimate goal is to protect the family and so we are set up in Stakes.  President Porter coordinated with all of the Stake Presidents so that they could be at every ZC and so we were able to listen to President Bradley for a while.  He is really awesome, and I am glad for the time I have been able to spend with him.  He lives in Eastgate and I spent a little bit of time at his house before I was transferred to Cherry Grove, but I still see him in the building sometimes.  Back to what I actually learned from him tho.  He told us that we are each the Best missionaries.  He has trust in us, and so he likewise expects that we will be the best missionaries.  We are known perfectly by our Father in Heaven and he sent us to where we are at, because that is where we are needed most, and it was so cool to think about it that way.  He gave us some tactile and strategic advice on how we can best serve the Lord, the people and the ward members. It was all very good advice.

  President Porter talked about how our goal is not baptism, it is the Temple.  We should be aiming for when these people can make it to the Temple.  I am excited that we are able to further our vision and see that we are helping them more than to the waters of baptism. With scripture study President said that there are 3 levels:

  Story- we know what is happening

  Doctrine- we know where to go to teach

  Revelation- we read it to receive our own revelation

He talked about how we need to be receiving revelation.  If we do not, how can we help others receive revelation for themselves?

  Good point huh?  I know that it is going to make me study deeper so that I am continually hitting the third level!

  I really could go on and on, but for the case of time, I guess I will move on. It was such a good meeting and I am so glad for everything that I learned.  I never wanted the meeting to end, I could have sat there for the rest of the day and still not been tired of listening to them speak.

  We had a lesson with a guy that we met in the parking lot this week.  He is great!  We extended baptism to him and he accepted so that is good news.  He was also excited about coming to church on Sunday.  We went to a Relief Society party/activity that night and Sister Stokes was nice enough to pick up us, and our investigator Arlene.  It was great because everyone was super welcoming to her, and they also all loved my outfit.  But who wouldn't? :)

  Sister Stokes and Arlene tried to guess my name for at least 10 minutes, but it was funny while they were guessing they really couldn't come up with anything and so Sister Stokes started calling me Janiqua.  I now have a sweet name.  It rolls right off the tongue huh?  I hope you all like it as much as I do, because lets be honest, it totally fits me, and I literally love it.

  When we got back to the house I got another package, this time from my BFFF.  It was absolutely fabulous!! It totally reaffirmed my love for wolves! :)

  We had dinner with the Huffs.  I really like them, we have tried to have Sister Huff come out with us a few times, but it has never worked, one time though, I know it really will.

  Skipping right along to Saturday, we went to Abi McMullin's baptism.  She is the cutest little girl in the ward, and it was so fun to go and see how excited she was to be baptized.  So when they do baptisms for 8 year olds here, they don't have a spotlight, kind of different from home.  But I kind of think its a Utah thing, because apparently they don't do spotlights in other places.  Go figure why not?  We had lunch with the Blackhams and Eastgate sisters, it was great. I love them all, and I don't ever want to leave.  Good news is I don't have to worry about leaving for a few weeks.

  We went down to New Richmond River Days and it was kind of the variety of people that one would see at the Caribou County Fair, but yet better, because there were more, and well, they were different.  I enjoyed it down there, because well, people are interesting!!!

  Sunday was super!!! We had 2 investigators at church!!! It was the most investigators we have had at church the whole time we have been in Cherry Grove, by 2.  We had a lesson with Ken after church and it went really well.  We did a few visits and met the most smiley happy man from Nepal too!! I loved him, he was funny and was laughing/giggling a bunch.  We went back and talked with a lady that we met a few weeks ago and she is really awesome.  Hopefully she will want to learn more. 

  I feel like there is so much more I want to share, but time is really of the essence.  Thank you so much for all your love and support.  It really means the world to me! I love you all more than my simple words can convey! I hope that you all work on your scripture study this week with me, because it is not enough to just read the story.  Remember that you are loved and prayed for by me!!

Love,

         Sister Julie Ann

Photos

 I'm still a cool kid huh?

No judgement, this was at the end of my long day....like I promise you I did put effort into my look since it was a special day, but at this point it had deteriorated.....completely!

Looking good huh?

 More for your enjoyment!

I look super fab huh? hahahahaha

Hanging out in the woods, with my BFFF's wolf package deal....

So also in those little woods I totally got to have a bonfire this week.  The Blackhams and us Sisters went and cooked smores this week and it was so fun!!