Hello!!!!!

So, this is going to be the world's shortest email. I am so sorry. I know that this is only connection to my mission that you have, so just imagine me writing about the miracles that happened this week. IT WAS AWESOME. Also the broadcast last night?!?! SO cool. It was so amazing to feel the Spirit as that many missionaries, ward, and stake leaders gathered together to further the Lord's work. Like was said last night- there is no better time to be a part of His work and His army.

 

I took the assistant's investigator on tour the other day...do you remember Tom? I took him on tour a long time ago. We set him for baptism, and they told me I could come when he gets baptized, hopefully in a few weeks!

 

Sister Jones is awesome- we are having so much fun together and I seriously love being in the singles ward. It is hilarious. Never a dull moment. Also, the stake primary presidency spoke in church on sunday because we don't have enough people actually in the ward to speak every week, and when one counselor was speaking, she was telling a kind of funny story, and the other members of presidency were in tears laughing so hard. Imagine mom with her friends. And then multiply it. In church. We were just like....what is going on!?!?

 

Iowa is stunningly beautiful right now with all of the rain we have been getting...be jealous.

 

I want to invite everyone to read a chapter this week...will you all study Alma 36? I can promise you that you will all be able to know something that you can change in your life that will bring you closer to Christ.

 

I LOVE YOU ALL

 

Sister Farnsworth

A Fun Picture!

                                              Allison and a group that she took on a tour at
                                            the visitors center.  The Mom texted a picture!
                               

Transfers!

Well, it's back to Loess Hills for me! I am so happy to be back, and it is so exciting to get to work again in the area....it's like opening an area - well, it is opening an area - except for I know some people here! Kind of a weird situation, but I like it. First of all, before I answer the 90 questions mom asked me, I just wanted to tell my sister and brother-in-law that their pictures are BEAUTIFUL and they both look so good! I always knew my sister would make THE most beautiful bride. Holy cow. Thanks for taking them, Kara, and thanks for sending them, Mom! It was so good to see the pictures of Nan and company too!

I am living back in CB- Council Bluffs, IOWA- again in the same apartment we were in before. It is a pretty good size apartment, so we like it there! We are back to teaching Chelsea, who is preparing for baptism. She works every Sunday, so she can't ever get to church. We are praying that she will be able to get another job or get her hours switched so she can get baptized, and she is looking for jobs!

My new companion's name is Sister Jones. She is from Lehi, UT, and is awesome! It was so funny on transfer day, because we were walking out to our car to drive to Iowa, she stopped and said "um...did you ever work at Off Campus Housing?" SHUTUP. She worked there after I quit, and recognized me from when I used to go in and visit them there and bring them cupcakes and stuff. What are the chances?!? Well, I guess it shouldn't be that surprising with all of the other crazy things happen in this mission. I did meet Sister Samuels (the Urry's cousin) when she got here. In fact....she just happens to be Sister Whittaker's new companion. She only trains people that have some sort of strange connection to me I guess. I also met Kenneth Wilson's younger brother when he got here. When the new missionaries get here, we take them out tracting. He went out with Elder Tatafu, who I am way good friends with. They set someone for baptism. Atta boy.

This has been such a crazy, but great week. I always love transfer week because it means lots of exciting things, but it also means some unexpectedness. Plus, throw in meetings for the upcoming concerts, and you get an adventure!

Want to hear a miracle? Well, I'm going to tell you even if you didn't want to hear it. On Saturday night, our phone died right when we got home. I was freaking out because the Openshaws were coming to our apartment to bring us something, and I hadn't told them which apartment number or courtyard we were in even at our complex. And we didn't have a phone. So I am sitting in our apartment, holding the phone, praying that Heavenly Father will let the phone turn back on. I literally said, I have faith that this phone can turn back on. Now, that's not the miracle that happened. Heavenly Father just thinks I'm funny when I say things like that. I still do it a lot though! Anyways...I tell Sister Jones that we are going to need to go use someone else's phone, but of course it's after 9 so the Trail Center is closed and the only other phone number I can think of is Lakeview's. They lost their phone, so now it's a new phone number. Great. All of the sudden, I realize I was in Benson for 3 weeks and know their phone number so I decide that we can go ask someone to use their phone. Now we have to decide where to go. Do we knock on our neighbor's door, or go to a store!? I'm just praying that Heavenly Father will provide a way for us to call the Openshaws before they get to Council Bluffs. Right as I finish my prayer, I open the door, and a lady is walking into the apartment complex. She just happened to live diagonal from us, and had seen the Elders when they lived in that apartment. She let us use her phone, and as I was calling, she looked at the dead phone and said "Hey, hold on, I have a charger for that phone!" Two minutes later, she was back with a charger. Not. LYING. Ok, so it wasn't the coolest missionary miracle ever, but it was a cool example of how God answers prayers. Sometimes not in the miraculous way we expect Him to, but He always answers them. And isn't that a miracle in itself?! A similar experience happened last night as we were leaving an appointment and a guy was outside the apartment complex so we stopped to talk to him, and less than a minute later his roommate was there too. We had a great discussion about Christ, and we are going back to teach them next week! We had planned to try and find 2 new investigators yesterday, and I had no idea how that was going to happen because we didn't have a ton of time, but Heavenly Father provided a way!

I know that this gospel is true, and that our loving Heavenly Father answers prayers. He always has, and He always will. It's just up to us to ask Him.

I love you all so much!

Sister Farnsworth

Pioneers

It sounds like trek was AWESOME and that things can start officially rolling forward with the wedding now that it's only a MONTH AWAY! Oh my heck, I am so excited for you all- but especially my darling little sister. And for Sid of course!

This week has been so so so so so so so good. We have been focusing on being exactly obedient down to the second. You know that I'm an obedience freak, and that I've been raised to be a "time" freak (being on time for everything, thank you Papa and Mom) so we've been working really hard on combining the two, and we have seen MIRACLES as we have even just barely tweaked the things we are doing.

We found an incredible young family who is SO prepared. We will be teaching them again tonight, but it was one of those instances where we just decided to go try a former investigator that we found in our area book, and they had moved. Happens all the time where we are serving in Omaha. So we knocked, and Luke (the dad) and his two oldest kids answered the door, said he has learned about Joseph Smith before, and that his wife met with Elders in KC before they moved here. He told us to come back and teach his whole family (tonight) and promised they wouldn't turn the lights off and pretend they weren't there. THAT IS A MIRACLE.

We are also teaching a woman named Alyssa...who also has kids. I love teaching families!!!!!!!!!!!!! It just makes sense, because the gospel blesses families. Get it? Ok, dumb preach my gospel joke. Welcome to my life though. We make so many dumb jokes. Alllll the time.

Today we are going to our ward mission leaders house to bake cookies and do laundry with his wife. They are both around 25- our ward has quite a few young couples either for school or who just got jobs out here. It is going to be really fun afternoon, and then we get to have dinner there. He played baseball for UVU so we know a few people in common from that, and because we all lived in Provo. It's a small world when you're LDS.

I took so many tours this week...it's definitely getting to be summer time! I have loved getting to take people on tour who are just SO excited to be here, especially families who sit and have their children participate, and the kids do it because they really want to learn and have fun. I've just noticed that it all starts as a pattern of study- Sister Whittaker took a tour the other day that the mom stopped her in what she had started to say and turned to her kids and asked if they remembered how that applied to what they had read in their scripture study that morning. The kids were able to make connections. I LOVE THAT.

Before I go, I wanted to tell you about Fabio. I think I told you about him before...he is from Brazil and got on Mormon.org chat (visitor center missionaries are the ones who chat) and said that he had seen an article about the new "church" we were building in Rio (the temple). He said he was Catholic, and didn't want to convert, but that he was looking for the "Bible's church" in exactly the way that it is in the Bible. We taught him about the Restoration- that there are apostles and a prophet on the earth, and that we can receive revelation from God. He accepted our offer to attend church and have the missionaries come teach him in Brazil (because I obviously don't speak Portuguese) and I still email him. This week, he said that he is getting baptized, and that he has been to church twice already and he knows that this is Christ's church!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you don't know it, or even if you have the deepest testimony, will you pray this week to ask God if this is Christ's church, and if it was restored through the prophet Joseph Smith?

I can promise you that as you do that, you will feel the Spirit testify to you that it is, and you will have the desire and opportunity to come closer to Christ!

I love you so much!

Sister Farnsworth

Hello!

Well, I don't think that there has been a single week on my mission that hasn't been eventful. For some reason, this has been the most insane transfer of my LIFE...my mission life at least. Maybe my whole life, who knows. One of my companions, Sister Pettyjohn went home to have shoulder surgery, and should be back by next transfer, but Sister Jensen and I miss her already! We are teaching a woman named Jennifer who has been through SO much in her life, and she is so humble because of it. She is willing to do anything to have more light in her life, and so she wants to make and keep commitments! I LOVE PEOPLE LIKE THAT! She came to part of church this week, so hopefully she will continue to come more and more and be able to be baptized at the end of the month like she is set to be!

On the flip side, last night we had just gotten out of an appointment, and we started to drive up the street to go see a less active member of our ward. I saw a lady in her front yard, so I pulled the car over and we hopped out to try and go talk to her. Yes, we totally do that. So, we get out, start walking towards her house, and she looks up, sees us, and then starts SPEED WALKING in the other direction. I'm not kidding, you would have thought we were really scary. Or threatening her. We laughed SO HARD after we had tracted a few houses and got back into our car. Oh my gosh, we laughed so hard.

We are trying to think about all of the funny things that happened this week. Of course I can't remember any of them.

Here is your fun-Nebraska-fact for the day! I learned this in a book I was reading about Winter Quarters:

The word Nebraska comes from the Oto Indian word for shallow or flat water..as in the Platte river (which is very shallow, and flat) The word is.....NEBRATHKA.

Say that out loud, and enjoy :)

This week, I got a call from Sister Owen, my dear sweet wonderful daughter, telling me that Matt and Elyssa were on the way to the temple to do baptisms for the dead for the first time. I got to meet them outside the temple and say hi because we were across the street at the TC! It was such a sweet moment to see them as they sat in their car and prayed before they got out to go into the temple. I wanted to bawl my eyes out at that sight. Elyssa didn't tell Matt I was coming, and it was the sweetest reunion. I love them so much.

I know that this gospel is true. I love being a missionary, and I love being a part of the Lord's work daily. I know that He blesses those who do what He wants them to do- regardless of if we are a missionary or not. So, I want to invite you to do something this week that will be what He wants for you. Because that will be between you and the Lord, will you pray about what He wants you to do? Maybe that will be to create a family mission plan. Maybe it is to attend the temple. Maybe it is to read the Book of Mormon every day- or for longer every day! I can promise you that as you pray about what your Heavenly Father would have you do, and then act on it, that you will have the Spirit more in your life, and you will be able to be an instrument in His hands to bring others unto Christ. And there is NO better feeling than that!