http://countingdownto.com/countdown/leah-comes-home-countdown-clock

Leah comes home in 46 days today! But we have the countdown to the exact second! Copy and paste the link to see! :)

-Savannah W.

October 28

Hello!  Oh my goodness this last week has just been crazy!  I am so grateful to be finally serving with a sister who has been out longer than me and has experience because Sister Heiner is totally changing the face of this area!  As STL's, we are expected to have higher numbers than the rest of the zone and also to go on 2-4 transfers a week.  Pretty stressful especially because the numbers in this area haven't been all that high although we are working with some pretty solid investigators.  However, Sister Heiner came in and told me the numbers that we are expected to receive and somehow we're well on our way to reaching them. Heavenly Father has definitely blessed us tremendously this last week!  We've been busy teaching a ton of lessons to members and also some lessons to investigators and also had the time to knock on doors and exceed our goal for how many new people we contact weekly.  I don't know how it happened except that the Lord was totally the one in charge.

We're going on exchanges this week and I'm looking forward to getting to know the sisters and seeing what we can do to help them progress as missionaries in their effort to do missionary work.  I'm a little nervous because I don't feel super qualified for this but I know that I must be or else the Lord wouldn't have called me to this!  It's pretty exciting to be able to go and meet sisters and get to know them one-on-one. Hopefully we can help them out!

Dad, that's awesome that you had such a great missionary opportunity!  I will definitely pray about this and see what the Lord wants me to do with this information.  It is pretty hard and scary for a member to send missionaries to their friends and family so I will definitely remember that as I pray and ask Heavenly Father what He wants us to do for Linda.  Thank you for following your spiritual promptings and being bold!  That is something that I've been striving to improve my entire mission because being bold but loving is the best way for the Spirit to come and testify to both members and non-members alike.  It's exciting to hear about everyone's missionary moments because it testifies to me that members are so important in this missionary effort!  Members and full-time missionaries can't do missionary work as effectively without each other!

We are pretty excited about our investigators.  We have 2 that are definitely getting baptized which is exciting.  One of them is a husband of a less-active woman and he is just so excited to get baptized next month!  The other is the woman we've been working with for a while now.  She's so solid and excited about her baptism too!  It's a slower process because of her work schedule but we're hoping that she'll be able to get baptized before Thanksgiving, it'll just depend on her work schedule!

Haha no mom, I did not receive a Halloween package from the Moore's.  In fact, I haven't received anything in a package from anyone since August.  Honestly, I love receiving packages and such, but it also doesn't bother me if I don't receive one.  The only time I get annoyed is if people say that they're sending one and they take forever to send it because then I'm just waiting in anticipation and that's what is distracting for me.  But usually I don't even really think about it.  I just like hearing from you guys on occasion!

Being a Sister Trainer Leader is kind of like a District Leader...but not at the same time.  The sisters still report and discuss the missionary work with their DL, but the STL goes on exchanges and counsels with the sisters because the sisters can't counsel with their DL.  Basically we don't have any stewardship over anyone but we are there to help and assist in any way that's needed.  It's awesome.

Sister Heiner is the trainer I had when I got emergency transferred to Leesburg.  We struggled while we were together because I was super prideful so I was excited to be able to have another chance to redeem myself!  ;-)  She's just great and is doing so much for this area that I couldn't do in the past!  I'm super excited to see how things go.

We did service on Saturday for an elementary school in our stake boundaries.  The picture is from that.  We loved wearing the Mormon Helping Hands vests!

I'm so sad that President Trevort is leaving!  But I know that the new stake president is going to be just what this stake needs.  :(

Anyways, I'm out of time.  Love you all and I hope that everything is going great!  Thanks for the updates!

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October 21

So big news!  I get to serve with my trainer again!  They just called me as a Sister Trainer Leader and my companion is Sister Heiner again!  I am so excited to redeem myself and serve with her again.  I'm not getting transferred which is nice so we get to continue to serve here in Olympia.  I am so excited for this incredible opportunity and I hope that all goes well this transfer!  I'm sorry, I am too excited to be able to think clearly so this email is probably going to be really short today.

I'm looking forward to having this experience and learning from the other sisters!  It's more responsibility and stress but I think that this will be really a benefit for the sisters and for this area.  We've been seeing so many miracles lately and I'm excited to see where this goes!

I'm sorry, this is so short because I need to get going and let my companion pack, but I love you and I'm so grateful for all of you!  I hope that all is well and that you're enjoying your lives right now.  Love and miss you!

With love,

Sister Ward

October 14



Hello from warm, sunny Florida!  It's weird that it's October and the leaves are still green outside.  Kind of a bummer, but I love that it's still warm so I don't have to wear a coat or anything like that.

The other day, we were biking to the church and while biking, I looked to my right and noticed that there was a plane writing words in the sky!  Naturally, I stopped my bike because I have never seen that before and I wanted to see the message that was being shared!  ;-)  The pilot had written "LOVE GOD" in the sky.  I had no idea why it was written on that day and how we were biking right at that time, but it just made my day all day long!  It reminded me why I am a member of this church and why I'm serving a mission; because I love God so much and I want to do whatever He desires of me.  It made me look at myself and ask what I do to show Heavenly Father that I love Him?  And now I'm turning the question to you, what do you do to show your love for your Heavenly Father?  How can you do more for Him?  

I am so grateful for inspired leaders!  We went on exchanges this week with our Sister Trainer Leaders and it was just what my companion and I needed.  I am so grateful for leaders who receive promptings from the Spirit and then follow them constantly.  Heavenly Father truly loves each of us and has a plan for every individual living today.

I am also grateful for the inspiration that we can receive!  Last transfer, Hermana Allred and I were prompted to drop by a less-active member's home and see if there was anything that we could do for her.  When we got there, we realized that she had just had a baby 2 weeks ago.  There wasn't anything that we could do for her at the time, so we left feeling like we did what the Lord wanted us to do even though we felt like we didn't do anything.  We told the Relief Society presidency about this woman having a baby and as far as I know, they dropped off a gift for her and did what they could to serve her.  Yesterday, this woman came to church and told the missionaries that her husband wanted to take the discussions!  I felt very strongly that it was because we had followed the promptings that we had received 2 months ago and the Lord worked in His mysterious ways after that.  It truly was a miracle.

I love all of you!  I truly do feel your love for me often.  When times get harder, that is usually the first thing that I feel.  However, I have been feeling it more often this week.  As I've told my companion stories about my family, I can't help but feel the love that I'm sure you've been asking Heavenly Father to help me feel.  I hope that you are feeling my love for all of you as well each day.  You are in my prayers right alongside with our investigators!  I love you all and I thank you for the Spirit and love that you help me to feel each week.  

With love,

Sister Ward

October 7



Wasn't General Conference just wonderful?!?!?!?!  Don't worry mom, I talked about your doughnuts to many missionaries and they were ALL envious and decided that they would just have to come to my house for Conference someday so they could enjoy that deliciousness.  I especially loved basically all of the Saturday sessions (can you guess why?).  Most of the talks were about member missionary work!!!  As a missionary, I definitely know that it is much easier for ALL parties when the members and the missionaries come and work together in the missionary effort!  We as full-time missionaries are not on our missions to find those who are ready to hear the gospel.  We are here to teach.  We are here to help the members learn how to do their missionary work and then teach those that the members are working with.  The members are supposed to find those who are ready to hear the message of the restored gospel.  Coming here, I realized that I had sorely failed at this before my mission because I used the excuse of "I'm from Utah, almost everyone's Mormon and those who aren't don't want to be."  That's SO not true!  Being from Utah doesn't mean anything.  There are still people we come in contact with all the time who aren't members and we should be fearless in sharing our testimonies with them and inviting them to repent and come closer to Jesus Christ.  Not only are there people who aren't members, but what about the less-active members or the members who are struggling in staying worthy to hold a temple recommend?  They need missionary work as well!  A lot of the work that we do as full-time missionaries is work with the less-actives and serve those members who need a little extra help.  Shouldn't the members be helping with that as well?  What's great, is that if you don't know what to do for missionary work, you can always ask you Bishop, Stake President, or the full-time missionaries for opportunities that they may know of for you to serve.  That, or they will help you develop and refine the skills that you already have in sharing the gospel to those in your daily life.  There is always more that we can do than just being a good example.  It is time for the members and the missionaries to be bold but loving at the same time (Alma 38:12).  But always remember to follow the promptings of the Spirit.

We only have one investigator, but man she is so ready and excited to be baptized!  Oddly enough, she was referred to us by a member and they have been working very closely with us to help her progress.  She is so excited!  She is a very intelligent woman and she's going to a Seminary right now and is very knowledgeable in the Bible.  It's amazing to see how throughout her studies, she's been feeling more and more like she was missing something big, and she has now found that through the message of the restored gospel.  It's so contagious to experience her excitement.  My favorite comment that she made was when she was holding my Quad combination and she said "This feels whole!  This feels so right."  At our next lesson after she had accepted a baptismal date, she asked where she could buy a quad combination and the member told her that he'd buy her a nice leather set with her name on it.  She jumped up in the air and yelled with joy.  How incredible it was to see her excitement over a set of scriptures!  I realized in that moment that we should ALL be that excited!  We have truth in that quad combination that nobody else has!  Shouldn't we be jumping for joy at having the fullness of the truth right there in our hands?

Mom, to answer your question, yes I have to remind myself everyday that I need to let the Lord take charge.  It's hard to have that same desire that He has sometimes though.  Oh my goodness, but that's why a mission is so wonderful because the Lord is so good at humbling us to a point where we simply know that we can't do it any other way.  But I guess that it's a lesson that I still haven't learned because He has to remind me constantly that this isn't my way, it's HIS way!

I got Kenna's email this time from you!  No pictures, but that's OK.  I am glad to hear that she is doing so well along with everyone else.  I missed ya'll while watching Conference, but I hope that you had questions and prayers answered along with revelation received while watching it.  I know that I certainly did and I am excited to get my hands on the upcoming Ensign to re-read the talks and learn even more from those.

I love you all!  I hope that you strive to be member missionaries!  You've been called to build the kingdom of the Lord, are you ready to accept that call?  I would love to hear what you plan on doing in order to be missionaries and serve the Lord.  Love and miss you!

With love,

Sister Ward

September 30

I never did get Kenna's email.  But I'm glad that she emailed.  I hope that she's doing OK and I miss her so much.  She's basically awesome.  But that's great that she gets to go to London!  Yes, I am SUPER JEALOUS that she gets to go!  Ooh a little envious, but that's OK.  I hope that she totally loves it.  When does she leave again?

Oh I hope that Savannah does well today!  It is a bummer to end your high school experience with a poor sporting year.  Trust me, I know how she feels!  But I hope that she did what she could to make it the best experience possible for her this year.  Did she get my letter?  I felt so bad for her last week so I hope that she got it.

How are all of the kids doing with school?  It's amazing to me how old and big they're all getting.  I was looking at our family picture that we took last year and it amazes me that that was already almost a year ago!  It doesn't seem like it's been that long!  I'm honestly a little scared about coming home and seeing how much everyone has changed by the time I get home.  Especially the 3 little ones because they grow and change so quickly!

We got to bike in the dark and in the pouring rain this week.  As we were going along, I couldn't help but smile.  In that situation, I knew that there wasn't anything I could do except have a good attitude.  If I stopped or complained, how much would that help me?  It wouldn't.  So, instead, I started singing Called to Serve while we were biking.  I'm sure that my companion thought I was crazy but what else could we do?!  I was smiling because I noticed that right then, I was living in a missionary moment.  No one else would be as crazy as us to bike in the rain when it's dark in a skirt!  

Mom, did you get to go to the Relief Society broadcast?  I thought it was so good!  I especially loved Sister Reeves' talk and of course President Monson's talk.  I thought that they were so good and I felt the Spirit so strongly.  I think that my favorite quote was the one by Thomas S. Monson; "God's love is there, even if you don't deserve it."  I loved that so much because I knew that God loves us no matter what.  To Him, we always deserve it.  However, it is us who feel like we don't deserve His love.  But that quote told me that even though I may not always feel like I deserve His love, it's always there nonetheless.  

God works in the most mysterious ways.  We are His children and He loves us so much more than we can ever imagine.  I had the privilege to watch a 9-year-old girl bear her testimony yesterday and basically all that she said was that she gave a Book of Mormon to her friend last week at school and that missionary work is easy.  Out of all the testimonies that were given, this one touched me the most.  That little girl knew that her Savior was on her side and because of that knowledge, she was fearless.  She knew that He would bless her if she shared the gospel to all she knew.  With the Savior on our side, missionary work is easy!

Anyways, I'm basically all out of time.  But I love all of you, and thank you for being awesome.  Today's my 8 month mark, and I can't believe that the time is flying by so quickly.  I love you and I miss each and every one of you.  Thank you for your strength and your testimonies.  They are a blessing.  Love and miss you!

With love,

Sister Ward

September 23

 

 My goodness what a bad week for Savannah!  I'm sorry about the loss of both cars but I am glad that Savannah is OK.  Sounds like someone up above is watching out for her and I'm so grateful!  Actually, I know that this might sound crazy and maybe a little prideful but I don't mean it to be.  As soon as I read that, I said a quick prayer thanking Heavenly Father for keeping her safe and I felt like the Spirit was telling me that one of the reasons that she was OK was because I'm out serving a mission (yeah I teared up when I got that feeling).  I am so grateful that she is OK and that nobody else got hurt in the process.  I hope that she will drive a little more carefully from now on and I'm sorry that she had to have such a bad week.  That's NEVER any fun for anyone!  Maybe I'll see what I can do to send her an extra letter this week in hopes of brightening her day.

I am in the Olympia Ward.  It's funny because one of the members (Brother Herzog) keeps talking about Brother Sonnie and every time he does I realize who he's talking about.  It's cool that they know each other and we have that connection!  I hope that one day you get to meet Brother Herzog.  He has so much knowledge about the temple and I could easily spend hours with him just listening and all of his tales about the symbolism of the temple and what everything means.  He's great.  In fact, the whole ward is great.  We found out that the reason why ..... decided to go ahead and get baptized was because of how wonderful the ward was and how well they treated him.  I was suddenly even more grateful to serve in this ward where everyone is so eager to fellowship and so kind to those they don't know yet.  The baptism was a success and he was confirmed the next morning at church!  He was so happy and I loved just being able to see his beaming face.  The baptism was a little unique though because he breathes through his throat so he didn't plug his nose when he went into the water.  Our Mission President was there and he was pretty excited to meet .....

Now that .....'s been baptized, we're focusing on finding people to teach again.  We are teaching 2 people who both want to be baptized but we know that we need to find as well in order to bring the gospel to everyone in this area.  It's actually pretty fun to knock on doors and meet all kinds of different people.  In just this area alone, I've met people from 26 different countries.  Talk about diversity!  I love being able to talk to everyone and learn about different cultures and how people act and think in the different places they've lived.

My companion is doing well.  It's always an adjustment to have a new companion and I have to be a lot more patient with this companion.  It is always a very humbling experience to get a new companion because you have to re-adjust your styles in order for them to work together.  Plus, every companion reacts to things differently so it takes a lot of compromising with each other so we can all work together in unity.  But we've had some incredible lessons that we've taught together and we are slowly adjusting and compromising with one another.  It's working out well!  Our  Mission President told me that she was assigned to be my companion so I can help her with some things and I am so grateful for the fact that I graduated in the degree that I did because it is helping me a lot with getting this sister to open up so I can help her.  I am so grateful for all that Heavenly Father has done to prepare me for this mission and for the things that I will be doing in the future!  Sometimes, we don't understand what or why we need to learn certain things, but then they become apparent later on in life in ways that we never expected.  I am so grateful that Heavenly Father is playing a hand in my life!

We had an incredible lesson earlier this week.  We taught a woman who is friends with a member in the ward.  We taught her the first lesson and all that she could talk about was that this all felt complete.  What we shared with her answered the questions that she had and filled the void that she was feeling.  Afterwards, the members were talking to us and complimenting  us on how well we did.  However, all I could think about was the fact that we didn't do much of anything.  It was all the Spirit!  This investigator was so ready and so open to just knowing what she needed to know in order to come closer to Christ.  Because of that great desire and her willingness to do whatever she needed to do to achieve that, the Spirit was able to testify to her as we spoke.  Probably one of the greatest things that I've learned so far on my mission is that we as missionaries can't do anything or accomplish anything without the Spirit!  This missionary work would be useless without the Spirit on our side.  How wonderful it is to know that the Lord is on our side as long as we are living according to His will!

Well I need to get going, but I love you all and I am grateful for your prayers.  Thank you for your love and support.  I love being able to hear from you each week and see how you're all growing over this time.  It's amazing how fast time is going by.  It's a bittersweet feeling.  Love and miss you all!

With love,

Sister Ward

September 15

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I'm doing much better this week!  I'm sorry that last week's letter was such a dud.  We had just gotten the text that morning and I was still trying to process it along with realizing the fact that my companion was getting transferred.  Basically, it was just a bad day and I'm sorry that you all had to deal with that.  But after a day or so it got better.  I'm actually doing really well, I just ended up having to email on a particularly bad day.  No need to worry I promise!

And then on Wednesday he texted us and said that he changed his mind and actually wants to get baptized. We got everything taken care of and his baptism is scheduled for this Saturday.  Hopefully it all works out! I'm so excited for him and his excitement about the gospel.  I'm really noticing that I don't really even care about whether or not it counts as someone that I "taught and baptized" because in all reality, it isn't the missionaries at all.  He is just ready to commit to our Heavenly Father.  I'm so proud of him and his diligence in overcoming the temptations and trials that he has and still committing to being baptized and coming even closer to our Savior in that way.  What a big yet exciting step for him!

I'm sorry that everyone's getting sick!  That's SO not fun!  I've been pretty fortunate to not really get sick lately which has been really nice.  Some missionaries have gotten super sick here because of all the stress and such so I'm feeling very fortunate that my companions and I haven't gotten sick yet.

I'm OK with you giving out my email.  Although I can't promise anyone that I'll respond to them regularly due to the fact that there just isn't a lot of time that we get to email and I kind of want to spend most of that time emailing you guys.  :-)

I remember Big Papa and Bedstemor writing me and telling me about how they're planning on visiting you guys!  I'm so excited for you!  That's going to be so much fun.  And you'll be able to practice some of your piano skills with your mom which I always enjoyed about them coming to visit.  I think that it's things like that that I miss most about home (No worries, I'm not homesick, I love being here!).  I loved hearing you play duets with your mom and just hearing the piano playing in the background while everyone else is just going crazy and making lots of noise.  I loved all the chaos!

I hope that Kenna takes that trip to London!  Ooh I'm super jealous that she gets that opportunity though! Yes mom, I'm still TOTALLY planning on going to Europe with you as soon as I can when I get home! That is kind of a priority to me before I get married and can't afford it anymore.

That member in my ward who texted you was probably the Ward Mission Leader's wife Sister Swasey. She's basically the greatest woman on the planet.  I love her so much!  She's done a ton for us and I was excited when she asked if she could text you.

I figured out how to bike with no hands!  We've been biking a ton this last week and I love being able to get the exercise!  Don't particularly like the heat or biking in a skirt, but that's OK.  We've been trying to contact a lot more people on the streets because it's kind of hard to tract in gated communities.  It's been fun to do it though!

I got a new companion.  Her name is Sister ........  She's been out 3 months and she's a little sweetheart. I'm almost intimidated though because President Berry specifically wanted me to be her companion because she's struggling with some things and he asked me if I would be OK with helping her out with her struggles.  I think he's crazy for trusting me with that responsibility but I can't argue with the man who's called of God to lead this mission.  It's been really good so far and I just hope that we can continue to get along and learn how to teach together.  It's a new experience for me to be with someone who isn't just learning everything.  We're learning to adapt to each other's teaching styles and make them work together.  It's actually kind of fun!

Well, I'd better be off but thanks for all of your love and Spirit and prayers.  They really do help out a lot here and I greatly appreciate all of it.  No worries, I really am doing great.  I am happy and I love being a missionary.  I can't believe that I'm already creeping up to 8 months.  I'm almost on the down slope! CRAZY!!!  Love and miss you all!

With love,

Sister Ward

PS: The picture is an epic one of the shirts that my last companion Hermana Allred made for us!  The symbol is what we use for the word baptize so it's basically her made up logo for baptizing all of Orlando.  Isn't that awesome?!

September 9, 2013

So...the investigator that we were teaching?  We had his baptism planned for this Saturday, his interview planned for tomorrow, and he just dropped us this morning.  We taught him a lesson yesterday and it was a commandment that he just couldn't commit to.  We're really disappointed about it, but we will just keep moving on I guess.  We're going to try and see him tonight and see what else we can do but I don't know how promising it's going to be.  But just keep praying for him and for us!  I'm trying really hard to not let the discouragement get to me.  

The dentist went well.  Sad news is that I'll probably have to get a crown on the tooth when I get home.  But the dentist I went to is a member and he fixed up the tooth the best he could without putting a crown on it.  And he didn't charge me anything which is a huge blessing!  He was really nice and it really didn't hurt.  Thankfully it was in the back so I was able to go and work without anything swollen or distracting for me and everyone else.

That's cool that you had the missionaries over!  That seems like it was so much fun.  I remember the missionaries saying prayers in their native language!  Funny story, we're teaching a guy from Iran (crazy right?!) and he said a prayer for us in Farsi!  It was so cool!  It helped me remember that tradition that we had with the missionaries in the past so that's funny that you had the missionaries over in the same week.

Congrats to Collin on his mission call!  Funny story, my companion Sister Allred's boyfriend is serving there!  He's apparently an incredible missionary so have him look for an Elder Silas Olsen.  I guess that he just became a District Leader or something like that.  Anyways, that's awesome!  He's going to love it.

So transfers are today!  My companion is getting transferred to a Spanish area so I'm getting a new companion in Olympia.  No, she's not brand new.  We get to just be missionaries and do normal missionary work which is pretty exciting.  We'll be biking a lot more because they cut back our miles so I'm excited to get more exercise!

Anyways, I need to go and help Hermana Allred pack.  I"m sorry that this is shorter, but I love you all, and you're in my prayers!  Love and miss you!

With love,

Sister Ward

September 2

OK I'm sorry that I didn't answer many questions from the last email!  Yes I got it, I just didn't really know what to say.  But I will do my best to answer your questions this time!

Unfortunately though, I wasn't able to open the pictures you sent!  But I can only imagine how beautiful the rainbow was and I'm SO grateful that I didn't have to see the spider picture!  We do have some incredible thunderstorms here, Utah is NOTHING compared to the ones here!  Florida is widely known for the lightning that's here.  The likelihood of someone getting struck by lightning in Florida is really high actually.  So whenever we see lightning, we all go and take cover underneath something or in the car.  We had a nasty lightning storm yesterday that made me really nervous but we've been pretty safe so far.  When it's not hot and humid, it's pouring rain and full of lightning.  It rains almost every day for about 15-30 minutes and then gets hot and humid again.

Oh the good old Onion Days!  I was thinking about that earlier today...I remember how much fun it was to go watch the parade last year with the kids!  I can't believe that was already a year ago!  It doesn't seem like it was that long ago.  Let me know what you think about the guard!  Is Rachel still coaching?  I thought that Camille was taking charge but I don't know for sure if that happened or not.

The bowling picture is a picture of the missionaries in my district on our district prep day.  And no, I didn't do very well, but it was still fun nonetheless!  It's fun to take some time to just hang out with other missionaries and just have fun with each other.  Last week, we played soccer and it started to pour while we were playing and it was so much fun!  I didn't get any pictures unfortunately but we had a blast.  We usually have District Prep Day once a month.  Last week was just a bunch of missionaries who decided that they wanted to play soccer and it basically turned into a big zone activity so there were a lot of missionaries.  I forgot my tennis shoes so I played barefoot which was an interesting experience.  No, there weren't any members, just a lot of 18-26 year-old missionaries being human beings.  SO fun!

OK, here's a rough draft of a normal day for us:

6:20-wake up and exercise

7:00-prepare for the day

8:00-personal study

9:00-companion study

Since Sister Allred is in training and learning a language, we have training at 10, and language study at 11.  After that is lunch for an hour and then we go out and work!  If we have teaching appointments, then we make plans for what we'll teach them and then in the free hours, we go and tract on specific streets that we prayed about the night before or we'll go and talk to people in the parks.  Sometimes we'll go and bike and just talk to everyone we pass by.  We also have a list of less-active people that our bishop wants us to work with so we will plug them into our schedule and try to meet with those people and share messages with them and commit them to start coming to church and strengthening their testimonies.  Next week, we're going to a less-active/part member family's home and holding FHE with them.  Hopefully we can start working with all of them to get them to come to church again and baptize those who aren't baptized yet!

Also, since we're in the stake boundaries that has the temple, we get to do temple service every other week for 3 hours!  We get to do work on the grounds for 3 hours and it is such a blessing to go and do that kind of service and feel the special spirit of the temple.  I think that we are more blessed than the temple workers are!

Oh the dentist...I am hoping to go and see the dentist tomorrow and get the problem fixed.  We found one that might even do my dental work for free so I'm really hopeful!  But I loved the message that Sister Berry gave to me from you.  Honestly, I wasn't expecting it so I teared up a little bit knowing that it really was from you and that Sister Berry was able to talk to you!  It was a smidge distracting for like 5 minutes and then we went back to work.  It just hit me how much I missed you guys!  It's weird knowing that I've been gone for 7 months and sometimes it's really hard knowing that I still have 11 months to go.  But I also love being here and I wouldn't trade it for the world!

OK, BIG MIRACLE OF MY MISSION SO FAR!!!!!!!!

We were on exchanges with the Sister Trainer Leaders this week and I stayed in our area with one of the STL's.  She is the BEST at talking to everyone!  We decided to bike all day (got the nastiest sunburn but it's getting a lot better now) and contact people on the street.  We contacted this guy who looked like he was from India and gave him a pass-along card with a picture of Jesus Christ on it.  Nothing spectacular happened or anything and we went on our merry way talking to more people.  While we were talking to someone else, he passed by us again and we reminded him to look at the website on the card.  Later, my companion's bike chain fell off and we had to stop and fix it.  While she was fixing it, he came by us again and he stopped and asked, "Where is your church located and when does it start?  I want to come to church every Sunday!"  I about fell off of my bike!  We are now teaching him and he has a baptism date for next Saturday the 14th!  It was one of those situations where I know that the Lord put us where we needed to be in order to find this man.  He is so ready to be baptized and make that commitment to our Heavenly Father.  So please pray for him!  He is a great guy who just wants to come closer to Christ and we are so excited about him!  Some missionaries have to work with their investigators to get them into the font, but sometimes there are just people who are ready and the missionaries don't have to do much to help them along the way.  Don't get me wrong, we're still working with him and helping him, but he is so ready that he doesn't need a lot of coaching from us!  We still have to teach him some lessons so we'll see how he does by next week, but Hermana Allred and I are very hopeful that this works out for him.  This experience has strengthened my testimony in the fact that there are people out there who are simply waiting for the right people to come along and invite them to hear about the gospel.  I don't know what we did to deserve this marvelous blessing but I'm not complaining!  I only hope that the Spirit continues to testify to him and help him come closer to Jesus Christ.

We're still working on finding and trying to tract and talk to everyone about the restored gospel.  This experience has given me a new-found hope as a missionary and I am excited to see what the rest of my mission has in store.  I'm glad that you're all doing well and I look forward to hearing from you soon!  Peace and blessings to all of you, love and miss you!

With love,

Sister Ward