Last Week in Terre-dise

Hello Everyone!

Well, as you can see from my email title...I am being transferred!  I am very sad to be leaving Terre Haute and Sister Faleono! I have enjoyed this wonderful ward and area so much! I feel so blessed to have been able to serve here for so long with 2 wonderful companions! Last night when we got the call, we were at our former bishops house talking after dinner to his wife and the Elders. All of a sudden, I heard the phone ringing and my heart jumped as I answered the call from the assistant. He told me I was leaving and my companion was staying. At that moment, our hearts broke a little. 2 seconds later the Elders phone rang, one of them is leaving too. The Honey Creek ward will be getting 3 missionaries transferred in this week. We are all very sad...but I know it is the Lord's will, so I will go and do what He needs me to do! I have worked hard here and have been blessed to see many miracles, so I feel like I have done my job here in the Haute!

So besides transfer news, we had a very good week! The highlight was being able to go to the St. Louis Temple with some members! It was so great to finally be able to go back to the temple after not being able to go for over a year! The spirit was so strong and I felt to so good being there! It was the best way to end my stay in Terre Haute! I also realized how much better Indiana is than Illinois...the drive through the part of Illinois was very boring...driving through Indiana is very boring too, but it is greener here and the corn is taller, which makes for a more interesting drive! It was exciting though when we got to the south part of Illinois and I saw some hills! It was great!

We taught a lot of people this week! We found and taught some pretty solid people! One person we taught is a young women who is friends with a member. This girl's family doesn't approve of the church so since she isn't 18 yet, she can't get baptized. That hasn't stopped her from gaining a testimony of the gospel however! She knows it is true and wants to be able to have the spirit with her always! She also even talked about maybe going on a mission one day! It is super exciting and I will definitely be returning to Indiana when she gets baptized! Her testimony and faith is so strong!

We also found some cool potentials this past week and were able to teach a couple lessons to them. It was a good week and we used our time effectively! I love being a missionary and being able to see the changes that people are willing to make for the gospel!

Yesterday, I spoke in Sacrament Meeting! I spoke on an article out of the June 2014 Ensign called "That We May Rejoice Together." I think it went pretty well! About a month ago, I felt a prompting to write a talk based off the article and to volunteer for a talk. I  skeptically obeyed the prompting and am glad I did. I don't know why Heavenly Father wanted me to speak on it but I do know that the spirit was in that room! There was a time in the middle of my talk where the room was spooky silent! It freaked me out a bit actually...but it was good. Sister Faleono told me that you could feel when the spirit came into the room and a couple people mentioned to me after that they were more inspired to do missionary work. So even though I felt a little off, I guess others were able to receive some guidance! We also taught the YW yesterday! We had 4 girls at church yesterday and no leaders. So it was us and them and we were able to have a nice talk about what it means to take Christ's name upon us and how we can better stand up, even if we are standing alone. I think it also went pretty well!

That is about all I can remember from the week....but I have a good couple days ahead of me! Tomorrow is basically already planned out with saying goodbyes to members and teaching some gators one last time. I hope you have a great week and I will talk to you next week from somewhere else!

love,

Sister Abbie London

1. at the temple! 

2. the craziest district on the planet...half of the group will be transferred... :(

Keep on Keepin' on

Hi Everyone!

I hope you are all having a wonderful s
ummer and that they weather isn't too bad for you all! I have got to say that this summer is so much nicer than last summer was! Maybe that horrible winter was worth it if it means a cooler, less humid summer! It has been beautiful here! :) Hopefully it stays that way...the Indiana weather is more bipolar than Utah weather!

So this week was a little rough with our numbers. Last week we taught 17 total lessons and this week we taught 8 total lessons. It was a struggle but we kept working hard and tried to teach as many people as we could. There is always more to do however! This week we have set some goals to make ourselves stretch more and are looking forward to diligently moving forward! It will be a better week!

We went up to the mission home last Monday to drop off Sister Hansen so she could go home. So for the following 24 hours we were in a trio with Sister Wilkinson until she got her new companion! It was a pretty fun day! On Monday night, we stopped in Fishers and had dinner with Sister Ingram and her daughter, Lexi! It was so fun to see them again! It was crazy because it was almost exactly a year since I had first arrived there as a very green missionary! Time flies! Then on Tuesday we had interviews with president. That went well and we were able to get some trainings from the zone leaders and the assistants on how we can be better, more powerful missionaries! It was a pretty good morning. Since Sister Wilkinson covers the ISU campus, we went and PCed for a little bit...at least we tried too. There weren't many people out and those who were did not talk to us. It was fine though, we still had fun and it was cool to see campus!

Something that the mission is trying to be better at is inviting investigators to baptism in the first lesson, so the assistants committed us all to invite the next 5 people we taught to be baptized. So on Tuesday when we had a lesson with a new gator, we invited her to be baptized and she said yes. Then on Wednesday, we had a lesson with another gator, Amanda, and recommitted her to be baptized and she also said yes! So we are super excited to extend them both dates in the next couple of days!

We had some fun on Thursday with a member making cupcakes for Elder Litster's birthday on Friday. We had them all nice and they looked really good. The only problem was that we had district meeting in Linton, about an hour away...so needless to say, they did not end up still looking there by the time we got there. :( good thing the look didn't really effect the taste!

That pretty much sums up my week...other than helping little kids find some frogs/toads, getting called short by a 9 year old who is shorter than me, and having 2 different people make fun of my parking, it was a pretty normal week! 

I love you all!

-Sister Abbie Paige!

1. the awesome shirts we got last week! They say "I'm so Haute"!

2. hunting baby frogs/toads with the newest member of the HC Ward! 

Defending Your Faith

Hello Everyone!

It's been a good week here in the Haute! We had some cooler weather and a nice little break before it started getting really humid! So I was happy about that! This week we had some really interesting and fun things happen, I'll start with the interesting! 

So on Saturday night we met with an inactive that we have been meeting with since I first got to Terre Haute. She doesn't come to our church anymore because she has had many bad experiences with some ward members and she decided to go back to the church she grew up in. But she is still on our records. We have been doing service for her and spending time with her for about 6 months now. for some reason she decided to let the sisters in back in January. So on Saturday we were over there and had just finished eating our dinner and somehow she got on the topic of the church, she then proceeded to tell us all of the bad experiences. We were put in a situation where someone we loved was attacking our faith and was therefore attacking us. We sat there, both wanting to get up and leave but something kept me held down on that couch. I could not get up and I did not know what to say...so there we sat. Listening to her say how much she hated Mormons and Mormonism. Then right after she said that, she burst into tears. She kept apologizing over and over again. For a while we sat there watching her and then I was up and walking towards her. We sat by her for a while and tried to comfort her and then Sister Faleono opened her mouth and allowed the spirit to work through her. We were bold and told her that we are representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and as such we will talk about the church. For the first time in 6 months, we were able to have a real talk about the church and how it will help her. We talked about forgiving like the Savior did and all realized that she needed to tell us all those negative things because she has been holding onto them for years and hasn't moved passed them. I am not gonna lie, when we left her house....I was ticked! I was so mad and upset and felt like I did not do all that I could have to defend my faith. My face got all red and stayed all red and hot for about an hour after. As we (Sis Faleono and I) talked later that night, she helped me realize that I was did defend my faith. In that moment, we acted like Christ would have. We loved those who were trying to tare us down. We listened with love and comforted even though it was hard to do. In that moment, we did more for her than we would have done if we would have vocally stood up for what we believe. Instead of using words, we used our actions and were able to have positive results. I learned a lot that night and am grateful that this experience only strengthened my belief and my testimony that this is the true church of Jesus Christ. 

This week we also helped a member's sister move. That was a fun experience and we were able to spend time with so many great ward members and help a non member feel the love. I have mentioned before how great service is a missionary and I am so glad when we have opportunities to serve others. There is something so great about helping someone and doing a good deed. It brings joy and happiness to someone else as well as to our Heavenly Father. 

I hope you all have a great week! Keep being awesome and know that there is a missionary in Indiana who loves you all very much! 

love, 

Sister Abbie London

1. My angry face on Saturday night...

2. All of us after packing up the moving truck! 

3. definitely not in Sandy anymore...

Fun on the Fourth!

Hello Everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Independence Day! It is so great that we have the opportunity to live here! The only place where the Restoration could take place! This week has been a fun one but also a slow one work wise! So last week we had exchanges down in Bloomington on the IU Campus! It was a fun day! I was with Sister Hain. She is awesome and we had a blast laughing at the mean people ignoring us and at the silly animals! We were able to teach 6 lessons in the 6 hours we spent out on campus. It was pretty exciting and missionary work on campus is so different from missionary work in neighborhoods! I liked it though, it was fun! Almost all the people we talked to were not really interested and were being polite, but it was still planting a seed whether they know it or not! Also while we were out walking around the beautiful campus, I touched a squirrel! Yep, that's right! It's nose grazed my finger! If it didn't look like it wanted me for dinner than I probably would have reached for it's tail or something to touch the soft part but it looked like it was gonna bite so I didn't take any chances! It was legit! On Thursday I hit my 1 year mark as a missionary! It was a good day full of missionary work, weekly planning, a random lady at my door with a bucket of treats, and celebrating in style up in Brazil! The last year has flown by and I am so excited to see what the next 6 months have in store for me and the Hoosiers of Indiana! Since not too many people like being interrupted during family celebrations, our mission president moved our P-Day to Friday. So on the 4th, we were able to celebrate by not making people hate the missionaries and by eating lots of food! In the morning the 2 wards here had a combined picnic breakfast at a park. We helped cook some of the breakfast and then enjoyed the beautiful weather! It was a breezy day in the 70's with low humidity! It was perfect! Since there were games and such going on at the picnic, we were able to wear real people clothes, so not only did we get to spend the day relaxing but we also got to spend the whole day in pants! :D It was great! We chilled with the other missionaries through out the day and then all went to a members house for a BBQ with some of the other families in the ward! It was so fun being able to get to know the families better and not have to feel rushed after. We played football, volleyball, and basketball and just sat and enjoyed the fireworks! Here it is legal to buy and shoot off the ones that go high up and boom...you know, the ones you imagine when you think fireworks. There were some really pretty ones! The party didn't stop there! On Saturday we went back to the normal missionary work and taught some people the gospel but that night we got permission to go to a baseball game with some members! It was fun...but also pretty boring. I have decided that Baseball is probably more enjoyable when you have a device that you can play on during the game and watch every now and then. It was fun though because now I understand baseball a little better and there were 3 homeruns by our team, Rex. Those were always exciting! It has been a good, fun week! I am excited for the week ahead of me and am excited to be able to work a little harder and to teach some more lessons! I hope all of you are having a fantastic summer! I love you all! love, Sister Abbie   1.Exchanges with Sister Hain   2. my 1 year surprise from home! Thanks family!