Transfer 5 Week 4 1-23-12

Hello everyone!

This week has been kind of crazy. Thursday was exchanges and it was a 3 way exchange as you can see from the pictures and descriptions. During exchanges, I had to drive back to Bennington with Sister B. Nearly the whole way there I was driving in a snow storm and the roads were fairly slick, but we made it okay to our destination. Ha, no time like a mission to learn to drive in snow, haha. Anyways, the exchanges went pretty well. We had a lot of appointments and were going from lesson to lesson which was really nice that no one fell through. 

Saturday, we visited one of our investigators (C.) in the hospital and taught about half way through the plan of salvation (she talks a lot and trying to talk over her is nearly impossible). C. has cancer and recently started chemo up again but she also caught pneumonia so she was in the hospital for several days. She is back home now though and we will be seeing her later this week. 

Sunday, we walked to church, a good 3.5 miles and part of it uphill. We made pretty good time though, it was quicker than when we timed it earlier in the week. Ha, Sister H. told one person in the branch that we walked to church (bad idea) then the entire branch all of a sudden hears about it and everyone is offering rides. Which would be nice if all the people that would and offered didn't live over a half an hour away and it being completely out of their way to do so, but oh well. I thought it was pretty funny how everyone was so surprised we walked to church, after all we are missionaries and we walk ALL THE TIME to save on miles. We only get 1100 miles a months and we have a huge area to cover here in Bennington, we don't even get to half our area because it is so large and would make us go over on our miles. So... we walk, which is fun actually. It is helping me stay in shape and we meet a lot more people by walking places than we would driving to them. Also on Sunday night (last night) as we were OYM'ing the streets, we saw about 7 fire trucks headed toward our apartment so we ran back to our house (running in a skirt with snow boots, a new experience, haha). Luckily, it wasn't our apartment but three houses down from us caught on fire and I think the entire fire department was there. They were using the big ladders to get people out of the windows. I saw lots of smoke but no flames. I don't really think that seven fire trucks needed to be there, when two or three would suffice, but I suppose they get bored in this small town. The entire town (or at least those who were out and about that evening) came to see what was going on. Don't know what started it, but everyone that was inside got out okay. Oh! Also on Sunday, there were these two people who walked into church late (found out later that they thought it started at 10:30 not 9:30) and they are not members but friends with some members here. It is a mom and her son who I think is a senior in high school (M. and M.). The son did a research project on our religion in school and found a copy of the Book of Mormon in a Marriott hotel. They got a good look around the church building on Sunday and the boy was able to tell his mom every story behind the pictures on the walls. There is one of Joseph Smith's first vision and he said, "Yeah, that is God and Jesus Christ appearing to Joseph Smith in the sacred grove." This kid is amazing! They had a really good experience at church I think and good impressions of members and said they want to come back next week. How amazing!! See the influence the members can have on bringing people into the church! It's amazing! We are hoping to pick them up as investigators soon. The lady was really nice and so was her son. I hope to see them at church next week :). It is interesting the last baptism this area had was because two people walked into church, and one of the baptisms in my last area was because someone walked into church all of them on their own but built great relationships with members. I have high hopes for these two people I met on Sunday, the boy is the perfect age to prepare to serve a mission after he's baptized. I can totally see him being a missionary someday. Sooo much potential!! Well, that was my week and I hope everyone has a wonderful week.

-Sister Gifford