Hay, it's General Conference!

Hello Everybody!

Wasn't it such a wonderful weekend with General Conference?!?! It was so great to be able to hear so many inspired talks to help us all become better! I really enjoyed how so many of the talks went along with each other and it was fun to notice some of the themes of conference! One that I noticed was how we all need to follow the council in Helaman 5:12 and build our foundation on Jesus Christ. I really enjoyed all of the talks on how we can do that and on making the atonement a part of our lives, the most important part! I also enjoyed the talks on overcoming challenges that life throws at us. I thought it was pretty cool how many of them spoke about the principle of agency and how "decisions determine destiny." I also learned a lot from those who spoke on obedience. That is one of the hardest things in life and on a mission! The principle of exact obedience is hard to follow sometimes so it was nice to get some reminders and ideas on how I can be more obedient! Probably one of my favorite talks was by Elder Korg Klebingat of the Seventy. It was a quick, powerful talk and I loved when he said, "selective obedience brings selective blessings." That one really stuck out to me. Sometimes it seems easier to just obey some of the rules and not others, but really in the end is it going to be worth it? Will the limited blessings get you all the way to where you want to be? I also really liked the idea that Elder Carlos Godoy had with the question, "if you continue living the way you are living, will the blessings promised in your partriarchal blessing be fulfilled?" It was really neat actually because something that we have been working on as a mission is beginning with the end in mind, which is something that Elder Godoy mentioned in his talk....I could go on and on but I am sure you and I both don't have time for that! Conference is such a wonderful time to receive guidance in our lives, now the trick is to keep reviewing the things that we learned throughout the next 6 months. It is now time to apply what we learned and see some of those wonderful blessings that come from following the council given. As Sister McConkie said, "following the prophet is ALWAYS right!"

Now to my week as a missionary! It was a good week! We were able to get in contact with some of the less-actives on the list and have appointments with some this week! I am excited to go get to know them better and am hopeful that we will be able to start to see some progress with them soon!  We also gave one of our investigators a church tour. She is a junoir at DePauw and is from China. Her family doesn't really want her to be baptized so she is trying to figure out what she wants. I believe that she knows the church is true and has felt the Holy Ghost testify to her on many occasions but she is afraid of what might happen in her family is she is baptized. The church tour was good and the spirit was strong...she is still at a stand still right now. We are kind of unsure about how to help her right now. We had another investigator who lived downstairs but her and her boyfriend broke up and she moved out...so we haven't been able to get her new address to meet with her yet. Hopefully we can get things picked back up soon.

This week we also got to assist some members in hauling some hay! We got to be farm hands again and serve! It was really fun and a good work out! I got a nice bruise on my leg...not quite sure how it happened but it did and it looks cool! It was really fun to help with the hay and we got pretty good and tossing it....hay is a lot heavier than you might think so there is a little trick to tossing it! So basically I am now a pro and can help in any of your hay moving needs! :)

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

love,

Sister Abbie London

1. My cute new fall outfit from home! Thanks family! :) 

2. Indiana Fall!

Mission Conference and Milking

Hello Hello Everyone!

This week has been a busy one! It was wonderful and even though we didn't teach a whole bunch, I had my spiritual glass overflowed with revelation and guidance! It was awesome!

We will start with probably the highlight of the week, spiritually...I have a non spiritual highlight later on....So this week we were able to have Elder and Sister Perkins come to the mission for a mission tour! Elder Perkins is a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. It was such a blessing! We gathered in Fishers on Wednesday with the missionaries from the Indy West and Indy North stakes to have our meeting, or as Elder Perkins had us look at it, our revelatory experience. He started off the meeting by talking to us all about the importance of coming to any type of meeting with a question. By doing so we are then taking control of the meeting and it becomes up to us if we take something away from it. He had us all write down 2 questions, one pertaining to missionary work and the other could be any personal question. It was really cool to see how through out the conference I was able to receive answers to my questions. It was great to be able to have that time to sit and listen to him speak to us. There was a point in the day where he came down off the stand and stood up front for a question answer about missionary work. There we were able to ask him some questions and get answers from him and his wife, President Cleveland and other missionaries! It was really cool to be able to ask a question about how to help on of our investigators and have a general authority help answer it! The are an awesome couple and have a super missionary minded family! All 6 of their kids have or are about to serve a mission! They love missionaries so it was great to be able to have them there! It was just a wonderful day!

On Thursday we had exchanges at IUPUI in Indianapolis! IUPUI is a college downtown that stands for Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis....at least that is what I think it stands for...either way it is easier to say IUPUI! haha it was a fun day and was kind of nice to be back in the city and on a college campus! It was a little strange too though since I have been in the country for a while now and am not as used to city driving! It was really fun! We talked to a lot of people and found some pretty interested ones. It was a beautiful day outside, perfect for walking around campus and Indy! We taught someone a lesson in the library back in a little study area and it made me think back to my college days of studying....it was a fun little moment and actually made me a little excited for when I go back to school! But I am more excited to share the gospel so no worries! :)

It was great to be able to watch the General Women's Conference this weekend and I really enjoyed the talks that were given there! We had our mission wide fast yesterday and I am positive that we will begin to see the miracles come from that soon! So now to the non spiritual highlight! So last night we were about to come in for dinner when we got a call from a member inviting us and the Elders over for dinner! So we went and had some pancakes with the Weiss family! They own and live on a farm so there is always something exciting going on there! As we were finishing up dinner they start talking about how they need to milk the cows so they can feed their new calf. We asked if we could help since we had never milked a cow before....so I got to milk a cow! It was awesome and was surprisingly easier than I thought it would be! The cow I got to milk, Daisy, just had a baby so she was a little sore and was scared of all the people so she didn't let me milk her for very long, but I got a couple squirts out! It was so fun and one of the calves in stall they just bought, so Daisy isn't the mom. His name is Stud Muffin and he was very hungry and impatient. He really wanted the milk, so we learned that a way to help him while waiting for the milk is to let him suck on a couple of your fingers....be a cow pacifier! So Sister Muñoz and I took turns being a pacifier! It was such a weird feeling! Sometimes he would "moo" while my fingers were in his mouth! That was a pretty strange feeling! It was such a cool experience and now I can say that I have milked a cow! It was awesome!

So it's been a great week with another great one to come! I love you all and hope life is good with you! :)

love,

Sister Abbie London

1. Milking

2. being an Indy missionary

3. cow pacifier

​4. the speedway!!!

Timber

Hello Everyone!  How are you?!?!?! I hope you all had a great week! I know we did! it was a good week where we did some more teaching, finding, and fun! :) To start off, we got a new investigator! She is pretty awesome! She has gone through a lot in her life and is dating a less-active in the Branch. She is really in need of the gospel and is pretty open to learning and listening to what we have to share with her. She has had Mormon friends before but doesn't remember all that they have shared with her, so she has some questions. She really wants to start coming out to church! I think that this will be a pretty solid one, what we are trying to do now is find out a way to be able to teach her and her boyfriend at the same time and work on reactivating him too. It would be so great to be able to work that out and help them see how the gospel will bless their relationship! We also had a cool experience with another investigator this week! She is from China and has been praying about whether or not to be baptized. She likes learning and meeting with us but her parents don't want her to join the church so she is torn between what to do. We met with her on Friday and talked about the Holy Ghost. It was pretty cool too because there was a baptism on Saturday that we were able to invite her to! She was super excited to come and see what a baptism was like and told us that she was excited all day Saturday! I was standing next to her at the baptism and she was just so happy! We explained some things after and talked with her a bit about how she felt and what she thought! she told us that baptism was a good thing. She really enjoyed being there and was able to feel something there! Sadly, we won't be able to meet with her this week because she has to go up to Indy for something but are excited to give her a church tour next week so she can get back into the building and feel that spirit there again! This week we also have been trying a new way of finding. We went through the branch list and have marked all the less-actives in Greencastle and are going to visit all of them, then move on to the less-actives in the other towns. We have a lot of them in the branch and really want to figure out why. We have a couple members who want to help us contact them and are pretty excited to see what this will bring! We have met lots of nonmember family members of the less-actives and feel like we will be able to do a lot of good with this idea! It will be good. This Sunday as a mission we are going to be fasting together. The fast is for every unit to be able to find a family. It will be a special day and I feel like it will really help and bless the mission and help us find those who are prepared to receive the gospel! we did some service on Saturday at a members and we helped them cut up logs to prepare for winter! It was fun to use the log splitter and also to watch the trees come falling down! There was one tree that would not come down! It was very stubborn and thought it could get caught on the tree behind it instead of come down! It was pretty funny. It finally came down though once they started pulling it with a tractor and had someone cut while it happened. Who know tree cutting could bring so much entertainment! I love you all and hope that you are all doing well! Have a wonderful week and remember that there is a missionary in Indiana who loves you! :) love, Sister Abbie London           1. the sunrise one day this week!  2. playing at the park with the YW

Service Brings Smiles

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all had a joyful week! It was a good week here in the Haute! It was the first time in about 7 months where I didn't have to go to a transfer meeting! It was a strange experience for me! Haha! So this week we had more open spaces than in previous weeks, especially on Wednesday. So I don't have too many exciting stories to report.

So we ended up doing a lot of service this week! There is a member in the ward who is fixing up an old house that used to be condemned. He has been working on it for the past 2 years and it is pretty close to being done. He was supposed to be finished by today so that someone could move in, however, I don't think that happened due to how much was left to get done. So on Wednesday we spent a lot of time helping clean some things up and do some painting. It was so much fun and it just felt so nice to do so much service. We spent some time on Saturday helping out too. I have noticed that these past 9 months as a missionary have been some of the happiest times of my life, all due to the fact that I get to serve others. Service really does bring smiles. It brings smiles to those we help, it brings smiles to us, and it brings smiles to God. "When ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God." It is such a joy to be able to serve people physically and to be able to spiritually serve them by sharing this wonderful message! So I want to invite you all to find ways this week to serve someone. Service doesn't have to mean going and pulling out their dead tree, it is simple acts of kindness. It is easy and when done right, it will bring a smile to your face!

The rest of this week was pretty routine. I had a cool experience Thursday around 4:00, so right about the time when my sister had just got married. We were watching the Restoration video with a new investigator. It is only a 20 minute video but it is so powerful and spirit filled. I learn something new every time I watch it. What I recognized this time was how vital the Restoration is to our eternal families. I was sitting and watching Joseph Smith look at a pillar of light and I realized that without that simple act of faith, I wouldn't be in an eternal family. My sister wouldn't have just been sealed to a man for time and all eternity. We wouldn't have the temple or the sacred ordinances that come along with it. I gained an even bigger testimony of the Restored Gospel than I already had and it made me feel a lot less sad about missing their special day. The gospel is true!

So those are my random thoughts for the week! I hope you enjoyed them! I love you all!

love,

Sister Abbie London

1. Cool wooden Indian from a restaurant

2. I received lots of love from home this week! Thanks mom and dad!