Happy Halloween!!

Hello family,

I absolutely loved the box and Cd's I received this week! It was super cute. There were only 2 songs that I cant listen to on the CD that came in the box. Did I ask for an ensign of conference? I can't remember bc that is Exactly what I wanted. I'm excited for it to come! (they are on back order) i don't know what we are going to do with all of the goodies! I think we may be taking some of the candy over to the elders. and i was SOOOOO HAPPY with the skirt and the slippers! The other night it got below 29 degrees and we haven't gotten our heater turned on yet! It was a super cold morning! It is always nice to wear the slippers in the morning when we are studying. And i wore the skirt on the first chance that I had! however, we haven't touched the Q-tip marshmallow things. I think we are both afraid to touch that.

 

This week has been good and bad. We worked really hard but it looks like we have more people that we are going to drop. Funny story though, last week, my comp woke up in the middle of the night and heard me, laying in bed, saying "OK, I'll say it. Dear heavenly Father, thank you for letting us be at the ______ family......" haha, I said an entire prayer apparently but i sure do not remember it. haha. Last week, the Spanish sisters bought us cheap 75 cent kites and we flew them in the park. It was soo much fun. Did i tell you about how 2 weeks ago, hermana Allen decided to show off and she threw a Frisbee right into my face. SURPRISE! haha, i love her, but that bruise took forever to go away.

 

I love the way that the ward sounds, nice and small. Does it have a lot of less active members then?

 

The best thing is having 2 trunk or treats to go to. We had one on Friday and the next is on Tuesday. everyone was dressed up. it was so much fun. We even won the award for the most original costumes. we went as.... the sister missionaries.... yeah, lame that we got an award, but we are missionaries so we are allowed to be like that :) but we had an 18 year old investigator come and we used her as an excuse to go trunk or treating. we grabbed trash bags and off we went. hey, now the whole ward knows who we are. and we were even able to meet people in the ward we didn't know. it was actually really cool. i keep telling everyone that we should pass out book of Mormons on Halloween night, but i don't think that's going over well. :) just kidding.

 

This week, my fav. person to teach is a 12 year old girl whose is friends with the stake pres daughter and is getting baptized next week. She is so happy and kind and loves everything that is taught to her. This week, we showed her a clip from pres. Monson. After, we asked how she felt. she said that just had we had started playing it, she just knew that he was a prophet of God. she is soo bright and in tune with the spirit. She cant wait to be baptized. I know that It will be one of the best days of her life. I can imagine her getting her endowments in the temple, and i just get so excited for her future.

 

We also had an experience with a referral. We knocked on there door (2nd time, first time they were busy) and they said that the wife had had a break down and that it was not a good time. So we asked if we could come in and say a prayer with them and leave a blessing on there home. they said yes, and when we came in we found out that there son was in a rehab institution and that they were upset and felt like there was nothing that they could do about it. We read a little bit from the scriptures and told them about Gods love for them and about why we are put on this earth. it was heartbreaking to watch them cry, but after the prayer you could just feel a difference in the room. they were not happy, life had not change, but they were able to smile and laugh some. Its amazing what prayer can do.

 

Oh, So, i might be in a movie that the church is making. The movie is on family history work and our stake has been chosen to record our work on family history work. on Sunday, they came into our ward council and recorded what was going on about the work. it was way funny and a bit awkward. it was hard to make ward council work as ward council and forget i was being recorded. haha. I'm glad i didn't have much to say.

 

PS.we are starting to get a lot of stews

 

Well, I LOVE YOU AND I CANT WAIT TO HEAR FROM Y'ALL AGAIN!!!! Y'ALL ARE THE BEST!!!!!!!

 

Trent and Amberly, look for the good in your life and it will come to you!

October 23, 2012

This weeks letter actually came in two parts.  On Monday while they were writing their letters the fire alarm went off in the building and they had to evacuate it.  So, she quickly sent only part of it.  When they were allowed back in the building the internet wasn't working so they were allowed to finish their letters to their families on Tuesday!

 

Hello!

Its been great to get all of your letters! I love them!

 

I am sooo excited that you are in the Skyes ward! That is what y'all have wanted for years! Thats gotta be odd. I remember Brother Larsen when he was in the bishopbric. He'll be an awesome Bishop!  So, I like that the ward doesn't have a number or a neighborhood, but it cracks me up that they named it after a mall. I guess I should call the office and tell them the change.

 

So I wanted to tell you about an old man that we have been teaching for a few weeks now. He is soooo talkative and funny that it is hard to get a word in. We have taught him the first 2 lessons (it took a few lessons to teach him all of the principles) and he has been receptive to almost all of it. He even went to General conference and said that he felt more complete than he has been since his wife died. Well, this week, we went over to invite him to church and ended up being super bold with him. He gave us each 1 min. to speak boldly to him (that meant that he wouldn't interrupt :) And we did. We told him upfront that the words that we were teaching are true. That the book of Mormon is the Word of God, and that he has been feeling the spirit testifying to him of the words that we say. The spirit was so strong as we spoke and you could see his countenance changing. He even shared with us a spiritual experience that changed his life as a boy and told us that this was the first time he hasn't felt alone before. IT was amazing! I cant wait to go back and see him on Friday.

something I love is how heavenly Father always knows where we need to be and how to put us there, even if we do not know about it at the time. The other night, we were trying to figure out where we were suppose to be when we finally decided to get out of the car at 8pm and just walk down the street to a members that lived way down. So we did. And about half way down the street, I saw a kid getting into a red car parked into the street. So I yelled, "Hey, how are you" and of course he gave me a really odd look. Or id assume so because he had no idea who I was and it was a bit dark to see. Doesn't help that we were wearing skirts either though. He asked what we were doing so I yelled "WE are just walking about trying to find people to talk to" odd look.... and he said "Really?" and I said, "Yeah, we are missionaries" haha, but we ended up talking to 3 men my age about God and about his importance in our lives. Every word was sent from God. IT all just seemed to hit them. The wording was def. from God. We gave them a book of Mormon that one man started to flip through. he told me that it had fell open to a page and he knew that he should read the vrs. where his thumb had landed. It related EXACTLY to what they were doing, there concerns, and what they knew that they should not have been doing . It was an amazing experience to see the Book of Mormon take effect in such a powerful way. It was God's way of reaching out to some crazy kids and telling them that he still loves them and desires them to come unto him. I truly believe that if they took into there hearts what we had told them that night, then there lives may have been saved.

 

Last night at dinner, a mother whose boy is in Germany told us that new missionaries are not Greenies over there, but they are Golden. So that's what Ive decided to call myself as well. I am golden :) hahaha.

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! I am so excited that you will get this note ON your birthday at least! That makes me super happy! and I hope that you got the card that i sent you last week. Will someone tell me how old mom is really? I cant remember and if i don't know ill just go around saying she is 45 or 46 or 47 or 58... you know, one of those choices.

 

I LOVE YOU MOM DAD TRENT AMBERLY AND EYN ALTHOUGH YOU ARE NOT THERE! I MISS YOU AND I CANT WAIT TO SEE YALL AGAIN! I LOVE YOU SOOOOOO MUCH! AND I MISS EACH OF YOU

10/15/2012

Hello Family!!! How are all of you! I miss you tons! Y'all are the best!

I am doing really good this week. Alot of amazing things are happening everywhere we turn. I don't feel like I deserve them at all. Y alls letters are awesome. its great to hear everything.

I had a day this week when everything was reminding me of home! When we got gas, we stopped to say hi to a family who was traveling through. They recognized us as missionaries and they told us that they were going to HOUSTON TX!!!! Freaked me out! wondered if I could sneak into there trunk or something :) Just kidding. But it was cool to see them. They were going to Cyprus.

The weather changes quickly. you never know if you need a coat on or if you will be sweating all day. The leaves are changing colors, but there are not too many leaves to change in the first place. But the mountain is looking yellower and I love all of the red leaves. I don't know if that is making the wild animals come out or what. I have now see many coyote, scorpions, spiders, wild bunnies, and road runners. However, loony tunes doesn't accurately show road runners at all.

The balloons are sooooo cool! I have a few on that card i sent y'all. If you look, you can see a pink elephant and Smokey the bear. sooo cool. IT is the best when they land. The go all over. especially in neighborhoods. in the parks, elementary schools, backyards, and streets. They are literally everywhere! I cant explain them. The best are the ones that are in shapes.

This last weekend we had stake conference. It was really good. We only went to the general session of it. In one of the talks, President Seagal spoke about how (2 weeks bf general conference) he had been in a hotel in Utah and Elder L Tom Perry came up to him in the Lobby. President S. asked him about missionary work and other things on his mind. Elder Parry told him just to wait for general conference and to make sure that he was there and listening. But that the missionary work would go forth and that very, very quickly, the number of missionaries would double in every ward.!!!! Isn't that amazing! Can you imagine having 4 missionaries in a ward!

On Saturday, a 9 year old girl, Katia Bond, was baptized as anew convert! She is sooo sweet. I have a picture that is going to be printed this week and sent next week. She was so easy to teach and knows everything. It was great to watch her learn and desire to follow Christ in every way. She is amazing.

There is one girl that we are teaching (the one with the deaf mom, but the mom did not come to the appointment this week) that amazes me. She has so much faith, and she has already been reading from the book of Mormon. The best part of the week was asking her to be baptized. You should have seen her face. She was already aglow with the spirit, but when she heard the words "Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized" she got so excited. She was soooo happy. You could tell that it was exactly what she wanted. T hat one expression was priceless!

Something else that was cool came form a referral that we received from the spanish sisters. It was out in the ghetto part of Bernalillo and we went at about 7 or 7:30 at night. We knocked on the door of this trailer to see a man. We were only there for like 20 min. And in those few min. the man could already feel the spirit working on his heart as we talked about how families can be forever and of God's love for us. We explained about how he can have that feeling of comfort with him for the rest of his life. It was so amazing.

Ok, I have got to tell you about this too. We have been teaching 2 women for a while now and one night, one of the women's friends show up and we invite her to join us. During that lesson, the girl mentions that her mother is a member- one not on our records! coincidence? NEVER. So we got her name and address and we have been trying to visit for the last few weeks. This week, they invited us in and we were able to teach her and her baptized mother about the book of Mormon. When we handed her a book of Mormon, she took the book as though it were glass and might easily break. her face was full of reverence and her mother and tears dripping down her face. the spirit was so very strong in that room. i love seeing the spirit touch the hearts of so many. This truly is the church meant for all people of all backgrounds.

oh, we think that we had the cops called on us. hahaha. so, if you hear anything about the missionaries in NM.... :) My companion and Sister Rose had been knocking on doors, when at this one house, 2 little girls opened the door. They asked if the mom was home, they said no, but the girls told the missionaries there name and the moms name. When my companion and I went backk, the mom opened the door, yelled what do you want, so we asked if she was so-and-so and told her that we had met her daughters the other day but had wanted to come back when she was home. The mom got so mad at us. She yelled at us that she didnt know how we had her name or had met her daughers and that she didnt appreciate it and she is catholic and slammed the door. We walked back to the car, and a few min later she was outside her house, on the phone, staring at us with her angry eye. hahaha, so we drove away, and felt really bad for her and her family and the oportunity that they were missing out on. We did feel bad for her. but we must have also seen about 10 cops everywhere we went that night.

Thank you for your prayers. Yesterday, I had prayed that we would be safe. But latter on, I was saying another prayer and right before I said amen I had the thought to pray that we would be safe again. Latter that night, we had planned on seeing a less active member that we have been trying to get ahold of all week. however, we both felt that we should try somewhere else and I had the distrint impression that the reason that we were not to go to that other persons home, was to keep us safe. Of course, that meant I wanted to go even more :) but we most certainly did not. I know that it is because of your prayers and because of your faith that I am kept safe and that the pure of heart are being found. I know that if it hadnt been for yall, i may not have thought to pray again for safety. I love yall.

So, in my Book of Mormon reading, I am in Alma. It is amazing. I have never been so interested in reading the scriptures like this before. It helps that I dont read harry potter all of the time. The scriptures really are stories full of climax, plot, characters, and best of all absolute truth. I love reading it.

I love hearing about all of you! Yall make me smiles! Thank you for your prayers and your love. they make a HUGE difference. I love YOu!!!!

Columbus Day

I LOVE YALLLLLLL XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

 

So, who knew that the Library is closed on Columbus Day..... yeah..... but really, who knew that it was Columbus day at all.

This week has been amazing and very difficult all tied in one. I have relied on prayer more than anything else. I have often wondered how many prayers I have said a day or that I will in a lifetime. That will be a super high number. The other morning, I was praying and just talking to God about every thing. Just pouring everything out, like it says in Alma 37:36. Afterwards, I had the lyrics "Father do you love me" stuck in my head but I couldn't remember the rest of the song. So I grabbed my children's hymn book out and flipped through it. I found the song "Teacher do you love me." Do you remember when my and Eyn and maybe Trent were younger and the ward choir had the adults and the children singing that song together? But they changed the words teacher to mother or father? Well, I do. And that hymn ended up being the exact answer to my prayers.

I have also been thinking a lot about Christ and about his ministry. He is amazing because he is the perfect everything, including the perfect missionary. Even Christ could not change all of the hearts of the people and they crucified him. Their God. You just have to except that everyone has there agency to choose right or wrong for themselves and even God could not/did not want to force them to choose righteously.

 

Last week, I went on Exchanges with Sister Davis up in Los Alamos. It was way cool. I met so many nice people. And it was actually GREEN! That was crazy. And everyone up there works in what is called "The Lab." It is the exact same lab that the atomic bomb was created in. Of course, when it was built, it was meant to be a secret area, but now it has a large community and about 32 churches in the area. wow.

I loved General Conference. That is so cool that everyone was able to watch it upstairs. We were at the stake center for 6 hours on Saturday and then on Sunday. We had a super nice member feed all of the missionaries in between conferences. it was so funny to be in there. For each session, you had a large group of 18 missionaries sitting up in the front and then all of the members behind us. it was a lot of fun to be with all of them. I was even able to receive a priesthood blessing from the elders. They are awesome. The new announcement is crazy cool. We are already thinking about how we might train 19 yr olds. weird. Sadly, I have already heard one elder say that maybe he will find his wife on his mission..... yuck.

I loved each of the sessions. I do not think that I have focused so well on them in a long time. its cool how every talk can touch you. Of course, we all loved the "Ask A Missionary" Talk. we hope a lot of good comes from that and we are excited to see what happens. It was fun to eat lunch with all of the missionaries afterword. if we ever had a question we would "Ask a Missionary" :) I also loved the talk about "trials of our faith." Elder Hollands was super cool. But to make it even cooler, i had watched an MTC address from him in which he included a lot of what he said at conference! And I had heard it like 3 days before! It is crazy to think and ask yourselves, Do you love Christ? After watching his MTC address, I was able to ask two of our investigators how much they were willing to do for God. I mean, you think about all of the trials that we have in life and you have to ask yourself what are you willing to do for God? especially, when you are faced with the choice to visibly put more trials ahead of you if that means doing God's will for you. I loved the talks about looking for the good in the little things of life. I have a "Count your many blessings" chart by my head at night. Many of the blessings do end up repeating themselves, but that is not because there is nothing to be thankful for, rather because I have seen and felt a strong need to be so thankful for the things that have been written on there. Oh man, I cant remember who said it, but one of the speakers basically gave the entire first lesson as his talk! That was soooo cool!

I truly do not have a fav. talk. you could name any one of them and I could tell you something great about each of them. I loved the talk on the Lamanites, but we were so upset that an investigator who needed it did not show up! Agh! That would have been perfect for him.;

I am very excited for the new general conference ensign to come out. we get a copy as an area, but I really wish I had my own. I did not know that they had a press conference about it? That is cool. What else new was announced?

 

OK SO WHO PRAYED THAT I WOULD GET OVER MY FEAR OF BEES???????

So last night, for dinner, we went over to the previous bishops home. He lives in a normal neighborhood, and he has 2 working beehives!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And of course, I got to go out and see the hives as all of the tired bees were flying from behind me to bring back pollen into the nest! What is up with that! I thought for sure I was going to get stung or die. One or the other!

 

Transfers happened today, and I am still staying in the same area for another 6 weeks. I may leave a few days before Thanksgiving.

 

I was going to take a video on the memory card that I put in the mail TODAY, and i did, but then i deleted it bc it looked really bad. i basically filled up the memory card. IT has ALOT Of pictures. And you are all welcome to look at any or all of them. Some of the last pictures are of the hot air balloons. There are literally Hundred's in all different shapes, colors, and sizes in the air. We had them over us, right by us, and all around. They are SOOOO cool.

Its hard to know that we are sooo close to the temple and can not go very often. i love the temple. Each and every temple.

 

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! I hope y'all have fun reading this letter tonight at dinner time. And good luck feeding the missionaries tonight. Wish them luck!

October 1st

Wow, it is great to hear from everyone. I love y'all so much. It is so great to hear your experiences and words. Ok, So Mom and Dad asked me how I, Elizabeth, was doing. but here is the thing. I AM Sister McShane. I am more than myself, if that even makes sense. I am here to do God's Work and that is really what I try to focus on. In the RS broadcast a lady talked about how the pioneers had to get rid of anything extra in there carts. In many ways, that is how I am. I have my family, friends, God, and the world around me in my carts. I try my best to get rid of what I will not see or do. I try not to be discouraged or disappointed in myself, because I can't carry that along with me. As an investigator would say, I raise my hand up to the Lord and try to give it all up to him, because he will take it if I have faith and continually try to improve myself. I don't write you much of when I am down, because its not worth the time that I do have and its not worth it to make the thoughts go through my head. I am not perfect at all. I have hard days. I have bad days. I have days that I just don't want to get up. But I am not. I rely on my companion, God, and my journal in all things. I can't let it overcome me.

Something cool this week is the Navajo people. We shared a message with a family this week who decided to drop the missionaries a few months ago because of the reservation laws. Thing is, you can actually get kicked off of the Pueblo for being anything but catholic. It is so sad because this family knows it is true! I have been thinking about what Nephi and Jacob and Lehi must be saying. At last these amazing peole have a chance to hear of there fathers! And yet they deny the true word of Christ. It is so sad and hard to take in. In some of the reservations, they have made it a law that the people can not leave on Sundays as away to prevent some of the members there from going to church! I feel so sorry for these people who just do not understand.

This week was great. We had many members present :) and were able to talk to many people. I love being about and inviting other people to change their lives. Sister Lindsay and I had a really good companionship inventory that has already shown leaps of improvement in both of us. We were able to talk through a lot of things that were holding us back, as well as figure out specific things to do to improve ourselves. One of our biggest  problems was trying to change everything at once. Repentance is Change. But if you try to change everything then you will explode. I know that it has been 5 weeks that we have been together, but we are starting to see much more companionship unity between us. Our strength of the week was member presents, but we are lacking in referrals and investigators at sacrament meeting. Last week, we had every investigator invited by a member. But it seems that something more needs to be done and we are working on it. We have also decided to visit every family of the ward and invite them to share the gospel and get referrals for the missionaries. It might be a semi-slow processes, but we are going for it. This week, we had a member bear her testimony. She said that her and her husband had decided to pray for missionary experiences. That same week, we knocked on the door. We had NO idea about there prayers. I am so thankful to be an instrument in the Lords hand. it just shows that alot of it, we don't and wont ever know about any of it.

 

Mom and Dad. your letters every week are truly inspiring. I love to hear your thoughts and your feelings as you go throughout the day. I have been thinking about how the family has prayed for missionary work and it makes me so glad. We need to help and the work of the members to go forward.

 

The Broadcast was awesome. It is so different to look at what they are saying in ways that it can apply to me personally and then to my investigators. It changes every word. I am so excited for conference this weekend. We have been inviting EVERYONE.

Ok, So more of me. I love New Mexico, but I think it is really odd that some people who hate rocks, actually have green turf as grass. That is odd. I think about y'all every day. Its funny how Ill just be sitting somewhere thinking about an investigator and a memory of y'all will just pop up. Do I want to go home sometimes. yes. But who wouldn't? That is part of life. Especially when we have a cell phone and I have our home phone memorized. But I don't. I do miss school and I miss Kenzie a lot. But life really is Good.

 

I Love You. Each of You. You are all special and important to me! I LOVE YOU