New e-mail 9/9

it is starting to cool off here, which is nice, but it makes me scared for winter. The people in the ward are the BEST!!! this is what a ward should be!! One of the members in the ward council set up a meeting and gave everyone who showed up, which was sadly only the missionaries, a list of less actives that we needed to track down. It is fantastic!! These people really care for others. We have an investigator that the elders have been working with forever, and she just passed her baptismal interview yesterday! I am sooo excited. We are going to help her set up the program for her baptism this Sunday. It is so great to see how different the people here are. They love having us. There is a lady in the ward who's daughter is serving in El Salvador, and the daughter sent her mom an email telling her to help us in any way and to feed us. So I asked that sister if she would come with me to the Spanish gospel principles with our investigator, that way she feels welcomed. it is great to sit in a class and not understand a word the teacher is saying, its like my high school nightmares all over again...

So I will tell you like that daughter told her mom, help the missionaries. GO and tell them that you are willing to help. I will testify to you right now that when you help bring people unto Christ everything in your lives will work out. Helping the missionaries and doing missionary work is the best way to help yourself and your family. I have seen this happen. The Lord takes care of those who take care of others. So go and let them know that you are WILLING to help them, ask them what you can do, and then do it. Trust me, they will follow up. feed them. it is hard to live off of the budget that we are given. And for some missionaries, they are not blessed with parents like mine who can afford to send me money when I need it. Please make sure that they are not eating beans and rice every night for dinner, because that does happen.  Take care of them and treat them as if they were me.

 I know that this is where I am needed the most right now, and I am so glad that I have come on a mission. I have learned, and am still learning how to truly care for people, and how to receive personal revelation from God. Study the scriptures with the family. 

Understanding 

Insight

Revelation 

Conversion

This is how I study my scriptures. I will read a couple of verses, and then go through this list. 

Understanding: what do I understand about what I just read.

Insight: From what I understand, what insights do i get out of this. 

Revelation: From those insights, what is it that God is trying to tell me? What is it that He wants me to learn from this?

Conversion: If that is what God is trying to tell me, what am I going to do about it?

You guys can do this as a family, and/or on your own. I have gotten more out of the scriptures than I ever have. I have also come closer to Christ. Try this for a week as a family and then tell me how it goes. 

9/3 e-mail

Sorry that I didn't write yesterday, but Sister Lee and I went to the temple with the other missionaries and then we went to a red sox game!!!!!! It was the best pday of my life. I have so many stories for you.

First off we are living with a member family, on a farm. It it awesome. They have two little girls and a little boy. Dorthy, Lucy, and Ezra. They are all super blonde and adorable. Ezra is about 1.5 years old, and he will run/waddle down the hall screaming. It is sooo cute. We have our own bedroom and bathroom. It is the Master bed/bath. Which means that we also have a walk in closet. It is sooo humid here!! it is so bad. it actually got foggy last night. I couldn't believe it. So we share the land we live on with a bunch of chickens, a goat named buttercup, a sheep named Lydia, and a pony named Sunset. It is super cool.

Second, guess who is driving!!!! That's right me! So we get here on Thursday and we share the area with our zone leaders. elders with power, hahahaha. anyway, so we get here on Thursday, and on Friday night we go to help someone move and then eat dinner at their house. They live in New Bedford. So we drive over there and Sister Vieira, the mom that we live with, told us that when we park we have to park across the street from their apartment. So there were two parking lots. I pulled into the first one, which was deserted, and there is a sign saying city parking only, or something like that. So we look over and there is another one. However, the barbed wire fence around it didn't cross my mind at the time. So we decide to park in the second one. We park in a slot that is labeled visitors. So we go and help the family and eat at  their house, and when it is all done the dad goes to walk us to our car. They had locked the gate. The opening we had driven through was now padlocked shut. wunderbar. So it also just happens to be labor day weekend, which means that there wasn't a chance to retrieve it until Tuesday. Thankfully we got it back and everything was OK. Our elders had to take us everywhere because everything here is so spread apart. It was crazy!!!!!

August 19, 2013

In the movie Evan Almighty, the female actress says to God (Morgan Freeman) something along the lines of she has asked for patience and hasn't gotten any. And he replies, "Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?" She had wanted her family to get closer, but it doesn't just magically happen. Heavenly Father doesn't just give us what we want, but he gives us the chance to earn it. I keep this in mind when I am praying. I have opportunities to practice things such as patience, but if I don't actually practice patience when Heavenly Father gives me the opportunity, I don't think that He will give me as many opportunities.

New Post!

August 12, 2013

Sister Palmer asked this be posted to her blog:

"Go trusting in God, and continue to trust in Him, and He will open your way and multiply blessings upon you, and your souls will be satisfied with His goodness. I cannot promise you and good in taking an unrighteous course; your lives must be examples of good works." - Brigham Young

This has really stuck out to me this week. I have really needed to trust in the Lord and know that there are actually people here that need the gospel. Even though I am covering two areas it has been really slow. On Thursday we tracked down less actives in Framingham. Two people answered the door. One was active, but had just come back from vacation and her husband is a ward auxiliary, so we wanted to introduce ourselves. The second, started off by telling us that it wasn't a good time and to set another time, but then she decided that she didn't want us to come back at all. She hadn't been active for a long time and she had no desire to become active again. She didn't want visitors either. It was very disappointing. We realized that one day she will stand before God and He will ask her why she never came back. He sent us to her. She had the chance. I wonder how it will all play out in the end. All I know is that I must trust in the Lord and be obedient to the commandments. Hopefully the people around me will be able to see the light within me and want to have a light of their own. 

New Letter!!!

July 29, 2012

**must see new picture!**

Umm, If I was to say anything. It would be that God knows our weaknesses, and that is why he pushes us. We are modern day pioneers. Are we going to sit in the snow and give up, letting our faith in God be replaced by doubt and disbelief? Or are we going to be strong  and have the strength to persevere and carry on? Are we going to have the strength and trust in the Lord to walk through our own personal icy rivers? One of Gods many gifts to us is trials and tribulations. What we do in the midst of them is our gift to God. In the song "we'll bring the world his truth" the word as was replaced with now, so it stated " we are now the armies of helaman...We are now the Lords missionaries". I used to think of the army of Helaman as a story, as something that happened a long time ago. As if the army ended when those boys eventually died. But the army of Helaman is here. We may not wear armor, we may not carry swords, but the battle we fight is real. We go against a strong enemy who our individual weaknesses and strikes at us individually. But if you are truly converted to the gospel then you will have the power to resist the temptations of the adversary. You will delight in doing the work of the Lord, and bringing to pass His work and Glory. Heavenly Father pushes us because He knows what we can become, He know what we can achieve. As I have been out here I have asked myself a lot, what am I going to accomplish today. What good can I bring into the lives of those around me? What does Heavenly Father want me to learn so that I may help others? Putting others before myself and loving them wholeheartedly has been a big trial for me. It is something I am still trying to overcome. I pray for help always, but I cannot sit idly by on the river bank and do nothing about it. I have to take action and exersize my faith and hope, believing that I can over come my trials.  

Made it to Boston!

July 22, 2013

This is a compilation of today's emails from Bree

Sooo much has happened. I am into Boston and went to the Presidents house, which is totally colonial style, and completely awesome!!! I want a house like that one day... Their family is super cool. I spent a couple of days there. My second day there Sister Slater and I went street contacting in Boston Commons. It was super ineffective and I think that that was the point that they were trying to make. We really focus a lot on member missionary work. So I went to the transfer meeting to meet my new companion and find out where I was going. It was really funny, because President asked how I was doing and if I wanted to meet my new companion and I was like YEAH!!! So he told me it was Sister Klecker. I had met her when I was staying at Presidents house because her last comp was a STL. I really like her a lot, we get along fabulously and are so alike. :) So then we found out that we are OPENING TWO new areas. TTWWWOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! So there haven't been sisters in either area, and we cover two different wards!! I was at church yesterday from 8-5. It is crazy. the areas we cover are Marlborough and Framingham. We live in Marlborough. :) I love it here. We live in the forest, it is soooooooooooooo green!!

Sister Klecker is from Franklin Mass. hahahaha. my apartment is great, except that we randomly find slugs in it........... It depends on the ward. Plus it is summer time so everyone is on vacation. We only have one family of invesitgators......did you get my picture?????????

yeah we are pretty busy. No sightseeing yet. So our investigator family is from Ghana and they made this meal for us called Fufu. you should look it up....

I see lots of elders in your pictures!  Yeah we had a ton in our district. We had only four sister!!!

yes the groups of pics that I have been sending are of my district.

It is hard to take pics mom cause I cant look like a tourist......... sooo yeah. I have a letter for syd, but I am having trouble figuring out my mailbox, so I have been looking for one around town

Are you at the library?  YES I AM :):):) its hard to see books and not be able to read them :.(

Did you see the pic of steve?? that's the slug that we found in our apartment.

We have this cool retro 70s couch that is this weird shade of green, and its pleather

Im ok. The Fufu I ate did not agree with my stomach and absent gallbladder.... So I don't feel the best, but im fine. Im sooo happy its Pday

Arriving at the MTC