Hello! It is 68 degrees here!!!!!!!!!!!! This is my kind of Thanksgiving! Tomorrow we will have a very busy Thanksgiving, which will be so much fun! Mom- before I forget, THANK YOU so much for sending those adorable aprons. I love them so much and am so excited to give them to people. Amanda- thank you for sending me an email! It was so great to hear from you and David this week in email, and to get letters from Papa and Jen. I love hearing from my family! Jen...it doesn't look like Gena's baptism will be this weekend in Nebraska OR Utah, but I will let you know if she ends up having it in Utah! Before I go into the details of my week (which may not be very exciting to you this week) I want to explain about Gingerbread. You should probably google Mormon Trail Center Gingerbread display. I am sure it will be online somewhere. People from all over make gingerbread houses and there is a huge display during November and December in the basement at the TC. People make them in their families, Relief Societies, cub scout groups, or just with friends. Then, people from all over the state and the surrounding states come to see them! It is so much fun, and tons of people come to it, so we get really busy. We even pull them up and take them on tour while they are there, which makes it even better.
SO. Now that we've got that crucial bit of information out of the way haha. This week was kind of crazy because we were only in our area for a total of about 6 hours. Gave me a taste of what it must be like to be one of the Assistants! Part of the reason we weren't in the area was because I was invited to go to that Leadership Training meeting, which was absolutely incredible. Tracy Watson from the Proselyting section of the Missionary Department came and spoke to us about how to be better missionaries and really focused us on telling the "stories" of the lessons. I guess he would know how they are meant to be told because he was one of the authors of Preach my Gospel. He made us role play a TON and his main focus was to have us be able to teach the whole lesson and extend an invitation to be baptized. I guess that would be my advice to those who are soon to leave on a mission or put in their papers (Megan Arntsen and Madi Webber!?!?) because it really helps you understand what is important to say and what you can leave out. Especially since you will have less time in the MTC, I would recommend really going through PMG! President Weston also spoke at this training about how the whole mission culture is about to change. He said that President Monson would like missionaries to be in an area for an average of 8 months- 3 months is normal right now! He would also like them to stay with their companions that long if at all possible! The big announcement, however, is that all of the sisters in the mission will now serve 3 months of their mission full proselyting- no time at the trail center. I am both excited and nervous about this annoucement. I absolutely love teaching people, but I will miss the TC when it's my time to serve full pros. So, even though I am pretty positive that I will stay with Sister Coats in Lakeview for the next transfer, I guess we will see when we get a phone call tomorrow to tell us who is being transferred!
We had another full day of Training the next day, and the rest of the week was spent at the Trail Center or at the funeral for President Clarke. It was a really beautiful funeral and it was so amazing to see the members of our ward just really take care of everything that needed to be done. President Clarke's grandson-whose father also died in the plane crash- spoke at the funeral, and I kept thinking he looked SO familiar, but I couldn't figure out why a 17 year old kid from Missouri would look familiar to me. Then I figured it out that he was in one of my sessions at EFY. Reez- I think it was the week we did together. He had super curly hair and sang in the variety show and was up on stage just about every 5 minutes because he was AMAZING? So crazy how Heavenly Father has such a way of bringing us all together.
Mike Hall is doing really well! He was going to tell his children that he is joining the church last night, so hopefully that went well! We are going to teach him on Saturday when he gets back in town from Thanksgiving and help him hang up his Christmas lights! We are going to Gary's house for dinner tonight- his girlfriend, Star, has been coming to church with him the past few weeks, so we are excited that we will be able to teach both of them for the first time! I'm praying that we will be able to get them married and baptized soon! Tracy Watson (the man who gave our training last week) said we don't "get it" if we aren't inviting everyone to be baptized during their first lesson with us, so you can bet she will be invited tonight haha! Even if they don't say yes, at least they know then why we are there and we can know where they stand! Everyone says I'm pretty bold, but I guess we can always be more bold. Haha....see what I did there?
None of us really know what to expect because of the 66 new sisters that will be coming here over the next few months- especially because we have so many sisters going home in the next few months! New sisters got here last night, and I can't wait to meet them! So strange that I am not the greenie anymore. Well.....really I still am, but there are now people that are newer than I am.
I love you all so much! I am so grateful for your love and your support- especially for the letters! Thank you Irene, Jen, Papa, Amy & Logan, Marc & Kylie, and SYS Blomquist for the letters this week!
I'm having a good time! Love you to the moon and back!
Love, Sister Farnsworth
This is Sister Ellsworth! She is modeling the apron that I made and had Allison give her! Isn't she cute! We sure do love her, and are so grateful to know she is watching out for Sister Farnsworth!!
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