Giving away homemade hot cocoa on campus

This week was transfers. The new missionaries came in on Wednesday, and that same day we went and set up a booth on ISU campus and gave away free hot chocolate (homemade of course!) to advertise for the institute! Hopefully people will attend institute classes and stuff because of it.  We go to the mission prep class occasionally if something in our plans falls through.  The teacher likes to use us as example and have us help with role plays, so that's fun. 

I just signed up for classes. Bleh.  I hope I won't be too stressed...I'm taking the max amount of credit hours that you can take for a spring/summer term---9 hours.  Hopefully it won't be too bad. I'll just have to make sure I focus on school and don't have too much fun! haha.  

So what have y'all been up to?  Anything fun or interesting this week? OH! also, yesterday I got a text message from a less active lady in my last area, St. Anthony, and she wanted to tell me that her kids are getting baptized!!! And she wants me to come <3  I am really sad though because I'm probably not gonna be permitted to go since St. Anthony is pretty far from Pocatello.  I'm really excited for them though! It will be a great experience for them.

The reality of the next 6 weeks is starting to loom over me.  The worst part of it is, though, that I'm getting excited.  I think it's just because transfers were this week, so I'm starting to realize that I only have 6 more weeks left.  I think once we get back into our normal swing of things, I'll forget about it and just go back to being completely focused.  The fact that I've been signing up for classes doesn't help though. Hahaha.  

We had a few really good lessons this week--the kind that just make my heart soar.  There is a girl that we started teaching named Reagan, and she's just crusin' on through. One of those people that is just going through the ideal "progression".  She has a member friend that she lives with and comes to church with.  We've taught her every week, she's reading the Book of Mormon and keeping commitments to pray.  We asked her about baptism, she wants to learn more.  Each week she progresses a little bit more.  Just slowly growing in her faith, she's kind of the ideal progressing investigator.  Learning a bit at a time, not wanting to rush into baptism, but definitely open to it. It's been great getting to know her. 

I love you guys so much.  You are the ones who have influenced me most in my life and I am so grateful for the love and support that I feel from you and from your prayers.  I love you so much!

God Bless,

Sister Moreland

                                                        Playing Capture the Flag with Singles Ward

                                                                                 Competitiveness!

I HACKIN' LOVE YSA. 

Have I mentioned that?  Well I do.

So transfer calls were this week......we are both SAFE! Whew! I am so happy. I get to finish in Pocatello YSA! And with Sister Gilbert! It's gonna be great. 

So first of all, Friday was the institute opening social, and we invited everyone we met this week!  A few non-members and less actives came, so we got to go, too!  So guess what kind of activity it was?  A nerf-gun capture the flag war!  It was so much fun. The singles there thought it was pretty funny/weird to see sister missionaries in pants being really intensely competitive with capture the flag.  Haha tons of fun.

So we met with Ali this week. Remember him?  He is from Saudi Arabia and we've been seeing him for a couple months now.  Well this week, Ali told us that his friend/roommate found the Arabic Book of Mormon that we gave him in Ali's backpack.  The roommate asked Ali about it, and Ali started telling him about Jesus Christ, about how to pray, and about the Holy Ghost.  Ali told us that he wants to bring this roommate to our next lesson!  So 3 days later, we met with both Ali and his roommate, who's name is Mohammed (haha Mohammed Ali).   The only way that I can describe him to you is that his soul is simply hungering for the gospel.  It is amazing.  We were just teaching very simply about God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost.  He interrupted with questions about the extent of God's forgiveness. He expressed his feeling of lack of direction and purpose in his life as of late.  He expressed a desire to have the feelings that Ali talked about. He told us he wanted to feel close to God.  His soul simply hungers.  And Ali basically bore testimony of the things that we had been teaching him the last few months.  He expressed to Mohommed what reading the Book of Mormon has done for him.  He told him how being closer to Jesus Christ has helped him feel peace.  We are so excited for both of them.  And they both came to church together yesterday!!! 

We received a referral from a set of Elders this week.  The Elders met this guy outside of his house one day, and it turns out he's a young single adult.  He is also from Saudi Arabia. He was interested in learning more about Jesus Christ, so the Elders told us where he was at and went and saw him. His name is Abraham.  Although he grew up Muslim, he's been watching Youtube videos on Christianity lately, and he has a lot of questions about it.  We had to clear up a lot of misconceptions he had gotten from these Christian videos, including misunderstandings about the Trinity and of Grace.  He's got great doctrinal curiosity!  He didn't come to church like we invited him to.  But he was surprised when we gave him a Book of Mormon in the Arabic language.  He expressed that he truly wants to know if Jesus was really more than just a prophet.  When Saudi Arabia opens the doors of their country to missionary work, that place is going to just go crazy with baptisms.  I love these people.  I love single adults!  I AM SO GLAD THAT I AM STAYING HERE!

Also, I lost my planner this morning. That's like the 783rd time this month.  

Love you all so much!

God Bless,

Sister Moreland

Haiiiiiii

SCHOOL'S BACK IN. SO MANY STUDENTS. SO MANY APPOINTMENTS. A;LSKDF;ALKGAOEIFA;LSKDGJ;ALDKFHJ;LFKHJA;DLFKGJ;ALDKFGJ;ADLKFGJ;LDKFG

It's all good though. It's a good thing. We went on splits 3 times this week because we had too many appointment and not enough time to cover them all.  Plus, we went on exchanges with two sets of sisters this week, so half of what happened this week is in my brain and the other half of what happened this week is in Sister Gilbert's.  Whew.  I've never been away from my companion this much in one week! 

Okay let's start with exchanges.  Exchanges went really well.  On Tuesday I went with Sister Archer to her area in North Pocatello.  It was fun and we met some new people for them to teach.  Then, on Friday, Sister Leon joined me in our area!  It was so great to get to catch up with a past companion. She seems to be doing well. She's grown a lot since I've been companions with her (about 7 months ago). She is confident and teaches really well! She is doing Spanish work this transfer, which has been really tough for her because she doesn't speak that much Spanish at all.  But she's learning!

Now, the new investigators found.  So we were on splits.  Sister Gilbert was with one girl and was proselyting in one ward, and I was with these two girls who are seniors in highschool and we went to a different ward.  We were trying to find this one apartment complex on this one-way street, but we kept missing it somehow so had to drive around the block like 3 times.  Finally, I saw the right apartment complex and exclaimed to them, "Oh! There it is!" We pulled over, got out of the car, and as we walked up to it I realized, oh...this is not the right apartment complex. But I didn't tell them because I didn't want to have to make them drive around the block again!  So instead we just went to this random complex where I knew nobody and for which we had no referrals.  We just sorta knocked on a random door and nobody was home.  Well. Now what? So I did some "apartment profiling", and we knocked on a door that had Indian writing on it.  Voila! Two Indian girls opened up and invited us in!  They were really nice and have a belief in God. They have felt peace in their life because of Him, but are willing to learn more about Jesus Christ, about whom they know very little.  They accepted a return appointment and we are super excited to see them this Friday!!

Thanks so much for all the love and well-wishes! Love you all!

God Bless,

Sister Moreland

Hola familia!

Whew this week flew by.  I am super behind on my journal, so I've been trying to catch up on that so that I actually remember what happens from week to week.  But we did move this week!  The woman whose basement we were living in moved out of her house into an assisted living about a month ago.  So we've been living alone in the basement since then.  The housing coordinators for our mission found us another place to live and wanted to move us in as soon as they found it.  So all this week we had been packing all of our stuff up.  On Saturday, the housing coordinator couple, Elder and Sister Kunz, and a companionship of Elders were kind enough to come and move all the heavy stuff like desks and beds out of the apartment and into the new one.  We didn't move far, just down the street.  The new place is a basement apartment connected to a house that a member family lives in.  They have 3 kids and a dog, so this will be fun!  Although our new apartment is smaller than our old one, it's newer, so it's really cute.  Our bedroom is especially tight, so we switched our normal beds out for a bunk-bed, which gives us more floor space.  Well right now we're still in the process of unpacking everything, so our place is kind of a mess.  I'm realizing how munch junk I have, so I'm starting to go through my clothes as I unpack and separate which clothes I'm donating to DI in the next few weeks.  

In addition to moving, we have been working in our new wards, and man some of these apartment complexes in these ward boundaries are goldmines.  The students from different countries tend to live close to each other, so there are some apartments that we can literally just walk around and talk to the people that are going in and out of their apartment.  I love teaching foreign students.  Yesterday we were knocking around this one apartment complex and these two guys from Nepal.  They have a Hindu background, so we just had to start from the very basics of explaining who exactly God is.  It is definitely a different way of teaching when you are trying to explain the gospel to those who have no Christian background.  Really interesting, though. It definitely makes you a better teacher because you have to teach really simply.  Especially when they don't speak English that well.  I hope and pray that they will be interested in learning more about Jesus Christ.  

We also accompanied one of the singles ward Releif Societies to a nursing home.  The Relief Society President wanted us to share a brief message with them, so we talked about faith in Jesus Christ.  As I talked to these elderly people about faith, this one old man piped up, "Fig? What's a fig?!"   "No, Faith!"  I told him. "FAITH."  I almost had to shout.  Haha it was really funny.  

We are teaching a girl named Kayla, who is 18 and just moved out on her own from Blackfoot.  She has been meeting with the missionaries in Blackfoot and had been involved in Young Womens and stuff, so now we're getting her involved in the Singles Ward!  She reads the Book of Mormon every night and is really progressing.  When we first met her, (which was only a few weeks ago, I think it was Dec 28th)  she had some things that were holding her back from baptism that she had no intentions of changing.  However, this last week, we talked to her again of what she would be willing to do in order to receive this ordinance that she knows is so importance.  She expressed that she had decided this week that she would no longer live her past lifestyle, but would instead give that up in order to be baptized!  We set a date with her for February 6th! Please pray that she will have the strength and faith in Christ to resist temptation!

Also, I lost my planner yesterday and after much panic and prayer, Sister Gilbert found it!  God hears even the prayers over small concerns. :)

I love you all so much! Thank you to my lovely family for the love and support and thank you to everyone for the emails, letters, Christmas Cards, and love!

God Bless,

Sister Moreland

Hello everybody!

Well, after a relaxing New Years Eve and New Years day of movies, games, and sword-fighting the Elders with foam swords, the load of work on me and Sister Gilbert has just fallen on our shoulders, and we're pretty stressed.  Actually, I think Sister Gilbert is just fine, but I'm really stressed. haha.  We just acquired 2 more wards from the Assistants.  They will just be covering family wards now, so they won't be working in the same stake as us anymore.  So now we have 7 wards, lots of people to see, records to update, 3 sets of sisters to go on exchanges with, and now we've just gotten word that we are moving.  The mission needs us to move to a different house because the basement apartment we are living in is for sale.  So we've only got 24 hours in a day to do everything, so I'm just trying to work on using my time wisely.  I've gotten really bad about that lately.  No more taking more time than is needed to do things.  Sometimes I wish that we had some kind of "missionary secretary" for us that would take care of all of the logistical stuff so that we could just focus on spiritual preparation and teaching.  That's really where the good stuff is.  I'm still trying to kind of decide and figure out what my New Years resolutions are.   In the mission field, we say that anytime you can't think of what to improve on, you can study "Preach my Gospel" Chapter 6, Section "Humility".  lol.  Haha, I know I'm about 4 days late on that, but there are just so many things that I could improve upon as a missionary and as a servant of Christ. Especially as I'm coming up on only having 2 months left.  I'm feeling a sense of the "sands running out." It's hard to know what to focus on the most.  I'll think and pray on it a bit more and let y'all know when I've got my goals!  I hope that you all have resolutions that make you want to become a better person.  There is a really good video on New Years and it's a good look on what our new year can be like!

I love you all so much!

God Bless,

Sister Moreland

                                                                  Sledding Christmas Eve

                                            Friends (Andy and Brock) from BYU visiting in Pocatello

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

We saw some Christmas miracles this week! A few days prior to Christmas, we were trying to see a girl named Graciela that we had met outside of her apartment.  When we knocked on her door, her roommate answered instead. Her roommate's name is Kiki and it turns out that she's from China!  She was the only one home and she let us inside.  We showed her the Christmas videos, and although she has no religious background at all, her Grandma in China is Christian, so she's heard about God and Jesus Christ.  The girl that we took with us invited Kiki to the church Christmas program, and Kiki accepted! So yesterday she came to church, and we sat by her and explained some of the things that were happening (the sacrament,etc).  She seemed to really enjoy it!  She accepted to learn more, so we look forward to meeting with her again!

We also had another miracle this week.  This was just the day before Christmas Eve.  It was in the middle of the afternoon, and we stopped the car on the side of a residential street in order to look at our map and figure out who we would try and see next.  I glanced up from the map and saw somebody bundled up and walking in the snow alone.  I didn't even think-----I just said almost automatically, "we need to talk to that person."  I got out of the car, Sister Gilbert following behind me, and we approached the person walking on the other side of the street.  He was a young man named Eric.  Eric told us that he was from California---he had just moved to Idaho that day.  We gave him a pass-along card about Christmas, and he seemed pleased, "Oh! Christan! I just accepted Jesus 2 or 3 years ago."  We talked with him a bit about that, and he accepted our invitation to come teach him about the Restored Gospel!  We are really excited about both of these miracles.  Christmas really is a wonderful time of year!  

We ate with several families and made homemade donuts with President and Sister Hancock! That was super fun.  Went sledding a bit, watch a movie with the zone, and played a very intense version of capture the flag. 

With the upcoming New Years, make it a time to give Christ His "birthday present".  For your New Years Resolutions, you can give Christ a gift by resolving to pray more.  Maybe you can make a resolution to be kinder to your neighbors and friends.  Perhaps you want to make it a goal to go to church, or to focus on the sacrament more as you attend meetings. Your New Years Resolution could be to say "thank you" more often, or even to spend more quality time with family members.  Whatever it is, dedicate this year of 2016 to the God who loves you more than words can describe. I LOVE YOU ALL!

God Bless,

Sister Moreland 

Guess who came home to Pocatello for the holidays?? Andy and Brock!  

Me and Sister Gilbert after sledding!

 

You will only understand if you are a Monty Python fan!

                                                           New Companion, Sister Gilbert

                                                                         First attempt at queso

MERRRRRRRRRRYYY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

New Companion!!

I can usually tell from the first few days what a companionship is going to be like. And I can already tell that it is going to be a fantastic transfer!

My new companion is Sister Gilbert.  She is from Huntington, Utah and has been out for 7 months. She's a brand new STL, so we've got a new STL training a brand new STL. So this should be fun.

I am excited to work with Sister Gilbert.  We've been sharing a lot of the goals that we have for this transfer and it's looking like we're on the same page--we want to be bold, fearless missionaries who are diligent workers.  Ahhh I'm so excited, Sister Gilbert is great. I don't know if I mentioned this in my last email, but she served in McAmmon while I served in Inkom.  The two towns are really close to each other, so us Inkom sisters would get rides form McAmmon sisters all the time, and vice versa.  So we got pretty tight there.  

All the ISU students are going home for Christmas break, which means, in terms of young single adults, Pocatello will be a ghost town for the next couple of weeks.  Most of our investigators are going out of town to see their families for Christmas.  One of our Investigators, Ali, is going back to his home country for the break. Please pray for him. 

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Yearrrrrr!! I can't wait to Skype y'all and see how you're doing.  Although I will miss hanging with the cousins, eating cottage cheese pie, making a gingerbread house, and going to the theater to see a movie on Christmas Day, I love Christmas in the mission field because of how exciting it is to 'announce' to everyone about the birth of the Savior.  It makes me feel like the angel announcing to the shepherds of the glorious news. Thing this year of what you can give Christ for His birthday.  I love you all so much!

Merry Christmas and God Bless,

Sister Moreland

we tried making homemade queso. Didn't really turn out, but it still tasted good. haha