THANKSGIVING!

Happy Thanksgiving! We celebrated by making a Thanksgiving Dinner on
Thursday (photo attached) and playing the "I am thankful..." ABCs
while driving in the car. So much to be thankful for as the Lord's
servant! I'm definitely thankful for my family and I am glad to hear
that all of you had a lovely time together at the cabin! Aren't we
blessed to have one another? Thank you for your e-mails this week and
the expressions of gratitude you shared!

We had a good week! A lot of lessons fell through, but I just see that as the Lord clearing our schedule so that we can find the elect. Sister Rothmund is wonderful and we are already working together in unity. It's great when in a lesson you are about to say something and all of the sudden your companion says it word for word (...that's the Spirit!) which happens to us all of the time. I told you that she is from Switzerland, right? She's twenty-four and went to BYU-Hawaii. She sounds totally American. I love her to bits, as they would say.

A nugget from personal study: I learned this week in the Book of
Mormon about motives. In Alma 43:45-47 we can read about how the
Nephites were stronger and fought harder because they were fighting
for the right reasons. There is simply no replacement for that desire!
The Lamanites simply could not fight like that because they didn’t
have the right motives. I realised that the same applies to missionary
work. If we work for the wrong reasons we may see good things, but we
won’t see miracles. Miracles require a kind of work that is humanly
impossible unless your motives are pure.

We have some wonderful investigators to update you on!

Tan: You heard a little bit about her last week, right? She's from
Thailand? She came to church and is really coming along in her
testimony, but we found out she is moving! She moves to Scotland for a
new job this week. We will miss her so much. Her member friend, Ning,
has the Gospel Principles book in Thai, so Tan studied the lesson on
Sunday morning before church and she contributed so well! She never
had a belief in God or Christ before, and during class she said
(imagine in a Thai accent), “I love Jesus Christ because He always
giving to others but no ask anyting back.” She loves coming to church
and she says she will miss everyone so much, but things are getting
worked out to send her info to the missionaries there. They are going
to be so excited to have her!

Brad: He is Polish and very Catholic. The Sisters "found" him on the
street and taught him once before I came. He must be in his late 30s
and lives on his own here. He is still learning English, but he is so
talkative and open with his comments, which I love! You always know
where you stand with him and what his concerns are. In our lesson
yesterday he said the most beautiful thing it almost made me cry. He
said, "I don't know, but since I've met you I feel something inside of
me stirring. I'm sort of...changing. I feel something in me changing."
We talked about the Spirit and the Truthfulness of our message. Those
are the moments that bring the JOY of missionary work! We had ordered
a Polish Book of Mormon for him that finally came. He is so excited to
read it and then tell us if it is true or not : ) he's great.

Noreen: she's a young mum of three children. The Sisters also met her
on the street as she was trying to push a three-baby pram up a hill.
They offered to help and ended up teaching her. She's not married to
her partner (which is normal here) and he's not fond of us. Even
though there is opposition there, she has said that she knows the Book
of Mormon is true and she identifies the Spirit as she reads and
prays. She's not plucked up the courage yet to come to church (doesn't
know what her partner will do) but she's getting there.

There are a few more, but I'm out of time! I'll keep updating you next week...


This is Thomas: he is Sister Radcliffe's cat but thinks he's ours :) he
wanders in whenever the door is open and likes to remind us that the
study desk is still part of his territory. Love him.