Update from the Week Letter from Feb. 2, 2015

The Girdner's got baptized this week!! They were a family that I was working with when I was serving in Kuna. Man... One year later... And they're baptized! YAY! Unfortunately La Grande is too far away, so we weren't able to attend. But that's okay. At least I know that it happened. :)

Other exciting news!!!! *drumroll* L. TOM PERRY, ELDER NIELSON, AND SISTER MARRIOTT ARE COMING TO OUR MISSION!! YAY! It will be a great day! They'll only be with us for a 2 hour period, but we're hoping to squeeze out all of the goodness that we can. :) Our entire mission will be gathering for it. We haven't had a full mission conference since.... ever. haha. I'm squeeling like a little girl- I'm hoping to be able to shake their hands!

Our mission has announced new mission goals. They're hoping to have 504 baptisms in the year of 2015... A new high. They've also made new goals for us as missionaries, called "Standards of Excellence":

2 Baptisms per transfer
10 Member Present/Other Lessons per week
10 Recent Convert/Less Active Lessons per week
3 New Investigators per week

This is going to be a huge test of our faith. So far, we've been doing pretty well at having 1 new investigator and 13 lessons per week in our area... But we're determined to succeed! This is going to call for a new commitment to be even MORE diligent and MORE obedient than we already are.

 I've been spending the last couple of nights making little object lessons. My companion goes to bed at 9:30 (for health reasons) and so I'm left with an hour to... really do what I want. Haha. (That sounds bad, but I really just study or clean.) But the other night, I made a "prayer sandwich"- an object lesson from the Ensign. We've been using it to teach children how to pray. :) The more things that you say in your prayer, the better your sandwich gets!

And I still have a fascination with the deer that wander the streets... I don't think I'll ever get over it. 

The work in Elgin is BOOMING! Billy, Voda, and Kendra all came to church on Sunday- AND Voda brought a friend with her!! The people in Elgin are amazing missionaries. They remind me of the little branch that's talked about in "The Power of Every Day Missionaries". :) They haven't had missionaries give their little town a lot of attention, so they've learned to do missionary work on their own! (Really, the way that it should be.) So, now that we're here, there are a lot of prepared people. :)

GEORGE. George is slipping awayyyyyy! :( I'm so worried about him. We haven't had the chance to meet with him for a couple of weeks now- although we've been in contact over the phone. He just doesn't have any interest in coming to church... He laughs at me every time I invite him. Haha. And then I just have to give him my straight face and say, "I'm serious, George." He's kind of in limbo right now. He likes what he's learning, but he seems kind of content with where he's at in his life... Hopefully we can pull him back in.

Small miracle of the week: We were sitting outside of Tiffany's house (one of our potential investigators who is sooo prepared for the gospel) and talking about how we were going to approach her. We knew that she wasn't going to progress unless we got into her house and had a lesson, but we couldn't think of any way to ask if we could come inside... We had only met this woman once! But we decided to leave it up to the Lord and said a prayer that we would be able to get inside and teach her. We knocked on the door, said hello, and she said, "Would you like to come inside?" YES! YES, WE WOULD! It was a small miracle- but a miracle nonetheless. 

Sister Gubler

Our church building gives the missionaries their own board to decorate. We've decided to re-do it and make it look SPECTACULAR. So, he's the before and during pictures. You'll have to stay tuned for the "after" pictures. :) 

It's still in the process.