Baptized Like the Early Days...

Hello lovely family and friends!

How are you all on this fine Monday afternoon! I hope it is fine where ever you are, as for me in Indiana it is hot and muggy out there so we try to stay in the AC! :) So this week was just wonderful for a lot of reasons! The first being that on Saturday at 1:00 it was baptism time!!!!!!!! Woot woot! Yep, Cameron, Bree, and Emma were all baptized on Saturday in the creek by their house! It was such a cool experience! It was really hot and humid out there and there were big bugs flying around, but it was such a great day! They were all super excited and after the baptism Emma and Bree, who are 11 and 10, went back in the creek to go swim! It was really funny! i love being able to see people make this step along the path! It is such a wonderful thing to witness and the spirit is just so strong there. As they were being baptized it made me think back to the early days of the church when everyone was baptized in creeks and rivers and lakes. I had a nice time reflecting back on how much things have changed since then and how much the church has grown since then! This really is such a great work and I am so lucky to be able to be a part of it now and for the rest of my life. Being on my mission has helped me see the importance of always sharing the gospel even without wearing a name tag in Indiana! We all have so much we can do to help those we love come and see the truthfulness of the gospel!

We had some crazy rain this week! There were many storms throughout the week and then on Saturday evening, the biggest one hit! It was crazy! We were really happy that it hit after the baptism seeing as it flooded most of the streets in Greencastle! We were in a members house talking and eating cake and were about to share a message when we noticed how dark it had gotten outside. Then the thunder started and we saw the lightning begin to light up the sky! It was pretty cool but the member told us we needed to leave before it got worse....so we didn't even get to teach her! Haha it was raining pretty hard when we opened the door and our umbrella's were in the car, so she ran back in and came out with a cowboy hat for me to wear and a cloth hat for Sis McCombs! We drove home to drop something off and were going to teach more people before dinner but as we drove we noticed how much water was in the road so we went home and ran inside! We were almost soaked by the time we got in the apartment so we decided to go play in it for a quick minute! It was so much fun! It was very relaxing and fun to be able to run around in the rain and jump in a couple of puddles...we went inside when we heard the loud cracks of thunder again though and enjoyed the rest of the storm inside! It was a fun adventure!

This weekend was a week of teaching for me! I was asked to give a training in district meetingon Friday, had to teach Relief Society yesterday, and will be teaching the adult FHE group tonight. It was pretty fun to be able to learn so much about the different topics I was assigned!On Friday my training was on finding and I focused on finding through faith, with confidence. It was a really good meeting because all 3 of the trainings seemed to flow together very nicely and it was a very inspired meeting! One of my favorite district meetings yet! The lesson in Relief Society yesterday was "The Cost-and Blessings- of Discipleship" by Elder Holland. I really enjoyed being able to teach that lesson as I have had many experiences within the last couple months that have helped me better understand what it means to be a disciple of Christ. I think it went well. It was strange though since the Relief Society in the branch consisted of 9 women yesterday...it was very small. I liked it though! Definitely lots of experiences to teach as a missionary! I feel like I have learned so much just in the past 3 days! :)

Other than that, my week was pretty routine. Met lots of people who didn't want to listen. Talked to some strong Catholics and Baptists...semi friendly but not interested in listening other than trying to compare. We did some service and ate some food with people. We got a couple new potential investigators that we will be meeting with this week. I think the most exciting thing is that classes at DePauw University start up this week so the students are all headed back into town! I am excited to personal contact on campus and find some new people there! College life in this town is definitely very different than it is in Utah, we will just leave it at that. haha!

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week! I would LOVE to hear from you though out the week! My address is
501 Elm St. Apt 1

Greencastle, IN 46135

love, 

Sister Abbie London

1. Baptism time!

2. swimming after

3. Playing in the rain

4. Playing cowgirl

Many Mighty Miracles

Hi everyone!

This week has been so great! We saw so many wonderful miracles happen and were able to do a lot of good work here! It was fun and we worked hard, what could be better?!?!

On Tuesday we had a lesson with 3 of our investigators. We only had one more lesson to teach them before they had been taught everything. They are 12,11, &10 and all have been wanting to get baptized for a while. It was hard last transfer I guess to get a hold of the parents to set stuff up but we were finally able to go over for dinner and a lesson. While we were waiting for dinner, they mom of 2 of the kids asked us if the branch was having any activities on the 23rd, we said none that we knew of and she then told us that she would like to have the baptism that day! The kids were super excited to be able to finally get on a date and were interviewed yesterday! All three are set to be baptized this Saturday at 1:00 in their POND!!!!! Yep, that is right! They have gotten permission to be baptized in their pond since it is a family tradition or something like that! I am so excited for the baptism and am glad that they are finally able to make this commitment with their Heavenly Father! It was such a wonderful miracle! Oh, and the best part is that a couple weeks ago when we were doing our weekly planning, we had felt that the 23rd was the date that we needed to extend them! Coincidence....I don't think so!
 

We also had exchanges this week and saw lots of cool miracles then too! I was with Sister Mumford, she is 20 and has been out one transfer longer than I have. We had some good teaching experiences and got a new gator! His name is Mike and he was watching Heaven is For Real a couple months ago and just knew that God really is there. He grew up going to lots of churches and doesn't really like how there are so many churches that don't teach the same things. Every church has different things claiming to be true. So we taught him the restoration on his porch and had a really good lesson with him. He said that if he found out that what we are teaching him is true, that he would be baptized! We have another appointment with him tonight, we are hoping that we will be able to teach his whole family tonight too! We had a good fun day, even though Sis Mumford hit her head on a tree branch really hard....yeah...that wasn't good! But she is fine and we were still able to get stuff done!

Yesterday we had Branch Conference and a member of the Stake Presidency taught our 3rd hour lesson. It was a really good lesson. He talked about 2 different things. First he started out by sharing a cool experience he had during a study of his recently. He was reading in the Book of Mormon, Mosiah 5:7-9, and it talked about being a child of Christ. He talked about where we got our names from. Like I am a London and got my last name from my dad. He talked about how he was adopted and when he was adopted, he took on the last name of his new parents. When we follow Christ and make covenants with him, we become sons and daughters of Christ. We are adopted into his family and can better take his name upon us. It was a really cool lesson and something I had been thinking about lately. He also talked about how we can all be a part of the Hastening of the Work. There are so many ways to help in the Hastening and we all need to figure out how we can best do our part. It is Heavenly Father's work and we need to get behind him in accomplishing it. It will be so much easier if we do.

I love you all and invite you to figure out your part in the Hastening this week!

love, 

Sister London

1. I realized yesterday how long my hair is getting! I love it! 

2. Thanks for the new headband mom! I love it! 

Catching Lightening Bugs

Howdy!

Hi y'all! I hope you have all had a wonderful week and are enjoying life and what not! This week was my first full week i
n Greencastle! It was a good one too! Lets see...where to begin!

So on Tuesday night we were coming in for the night when Sister McCombs looks at me and says, "Look, I caught a lightning bug!" Sure enough there in her hands was a lightning bug! Since I am from Utah and have never had the opportunity to catch these little suckers, we decided to go out and catch some more! So, a little while later, we had 6 lightning bugs in our jar. Laman, Lemuel, Sam, Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph...missionaries are weird okay... It was a fun experience! Another fun thing that happened this week is that we kind of learned to play Monopoly by the real rules, you know with the houses and hotels and stuff...last Monday for p-day we played some games at the church with the Elders. Both of the elders knew how to play Monopoly and one say that Sister McCombs and I had way too much money not to have houses/hotels...so we bought some! It was cool! I am still not super sure how it works...but I was making money faster, so thats cool! :)

We taught some gators this week and got dropped by an eternigator (eternal investigator). That was sad. This week we mostly spent our time trying to track down some of the less-actives. There are A LOT on our branch list and half are names of people that no one has even met before. So we are trying to track some down and are hoping to start teaching more part member families. It will take some work but there are so many LA here and if we can get them to start coming back, this little branch could be a ward! So as we travel around the county roads and such, we came to some pretty fun dirt roads! It made me want to go jeeping! Good thing Sid still owes us a jeep trip when we get back! ;) There are a lot of back country roads here and some pretty cool red covered bridges. They are cool except when driving over them and being able to hear them creaking underneath the car....I'm not the biggest fan of crossing bridges...

So some other random cool stuff from this week is that we have started giving out church tours officially to anyone! Before we were just giving them to people that we were already teaching, but now we are giving them to the members and we can now take anyone! So if we just meet someone and they want a tour we can take them or we can do the members friends. It is pretty exciting! I really like these church tours that we give. We show them 4 different paintings placed around the church and also the chapel and talk about the sacrament. It is a simple tour but so powerful! The elders took us on one the other night to practice and I was playing the nonmember. It was so spiritual especially when we were looking at the painting of Jesus Christ coming to America. It was such a powerful moment!

One final thought to end with. Next time Satan is trying to tempt you to do something stupid, remember this scripture from Ether 11:14, "...and Moron did that which was wicked before the Lord." Don't be a Moron! :)

love,

Sister London

1. our lightning bug friends

2. Abbie Potter doing some service! 

Greencastle!

Hello!

Hi everyone! So I have been transferred to the Greencastle Branch! My new companion is Sister McCombs! She has been out for almost a year, meaning she came out the transfer after me! Greencastle is a tiny little town....like really tiny! It is the smallest town that I have ever lived in...I haven't lived many places but it is small! I like it though! It has a cute little small town feel that I imagine Stars Hollow would feel like! Depauw University is in Greencastle so I am pretty excited for school to start here in the next couple of weeks! The branch is pretty awesome, it is strange being in branch instead of a ward...I'm not used to such a small congregation. It is fun though! We have a set of Elders who are also in the branch so we aren't completely exiled...just a little bit! Greencastle is actually fairly close to my old ward in Terre Haute! We are in a different stake so I won't really get to go down there until some of the people we were working with get baptized.

I haven't really gotten to meet too many of the investigators that we have here yet but most of them are out of town. There is a lot of work to do here, none of the gators are showing much potential or willingness to progress. So we will need to do a lot of finding! Yay! I am excited! Let's see....nothing super exciting or funny has happened since I have gotten here...

It was very bittersweet leaving Terre Haute! It was such a great area and ward and I was very sad to leave. My last 2 days there were mostly spent visiting members and teaching some gators one last time. I miss Terre Haute but know that I did all that I was supposed to do there. A new adventure awaits with new laughter and new trials. Come what may and love it!

So the bugs here in Indiana just love me! For some reason I am just too sweet and they keep coming back for more...it happened last summer too but it is annoying! I had gotten a lot of bites last month in Terre Haute but they all healed and stopped itching and the bugs seemed to be sick of me. Then I got transferred and the new bugs were excited to find some fresh blood....I have probably at least 20 bites on my legs. The itch so bad!!!!!!!!!!! I have some bug spray now and am going to make it hard for these pesky little suckers to eat me! I'm not gonna let them win that easy!

Well...sorry it is a really lame email...I wish I had more exciting things to write about this week...but sometimes, mission life is pretty uneventful! I love you all and would love to hear from you!

love,

Sister Abbie London

1. Me and Sis McCombs

2. might be hard to see...but it is all my bites. :(