Little Dot's Grand Adventures: A week in the life of a brand new trainer

So This past week has been crazy!

On Monday we had dinner with a member and then made sure that Sister Kimball had everything.

Tuesday was transfer meeting. We had to meet at the Augusta Chapel at 6:30 am (YUCK). Everyone who was supposed to meet us there were late because their power went out. For the Sisters it was out for a few days. Sister Kimball ended up transferring to Damariscotta which is in our district. We got our stuff all loaded up and headed out. When we got there the meeting for the trainers was almost over and then the big meeting started. Sister Blume is training too! I am really happy I got to see all the missionaries from my last district! I was put with Sister Bee and it was funny because as we walked toward each other to give each other a hug we had the awkward moment of whoa you are really short and you are really tall. Then I got to see ERIN AND KATE!!!!!!!!!!!! I was soooooooo excited to see them! It was like seeing family! TENDER MERCY!!!!!! After that we traveled back to Augusta. That night we had dinner with Brother and Sister Perez. They are super cute and always feed us really good food.

On Wednesday we had district meeting and that went great. We went over Alma 32 and what we have to do and what others have to do to gain that testimony and true conversion. It was really good. Then we had coordination. Then we had scripture study class. We read 1 Nephi 3 about when Nephi and his brothers are trying to get the plates. As we read we pulled out good and bad examples of how they were diligent. We then related it to our lives. It went really well and everyone participated.

Oh and last Sunday after the storm one of the members slid off the road and the electricity pole broke and the transformer exploded and there were live wires surrounding them and they were stuck there for a while but everything was okay in the end.

On Thursday we had service and the interview for Sister Bee for service at the hospital. After that we had a lesson with our new investigator, D. At first we were planning to go over the plan of salvation but as soon as we started he mentioned that he struggles with the concept of faith. So we changed our lesson in the middle and instead went over Alma 32:28 with him and discussed how faith is like a little seed. It went great! Oh and even though he said that he isn't a reader he read both the introduction and the testimony of the three and eight witnesses in the Book of Mormon!

Then that night we had dinner with some other members and they fed us really yummy tacos :)

On Friday we went tracting before we had our lesson with our recent convert, E. We knocked on this door and this lady on the phone answered and told us to come in. After she hung up she talked to us for a while and opened up a ton to us. We set a return appointment and we are seeing her tomorrow. The coolest part was that she said to us that maybe God sent us to her. And we said yep :)

Then with E we went over the Restoration. We started off with the question: How has the knowledge that the church has been restored brought you hope. It rolled off from there and ended up being more of a mini testimony meeting. And he will be getting the priesthood soon!

On Saturday we went and helped rake leaves at a member's home with some other members. It was great because we got to know the members better. Later that day we helped with this memorial service. Mostly nonmembers attended and they were super sweet and really grateful. We helped set up and made it look nice for them. For the service I had to lead the music. The two songs were Amazing Grace and Oh My Father. Well either they didn't know the songs too well or were too emotional to sing it because I ended up pretty much singing a solo for both and it freaked me out! Especially because both songs are pretty high. Then afterwards they kept coming up and saying that I had a beautiful soprano voice... little do they know that I am actually an alto.

That night we got a call from the Primary President asking if we could teach the Valiant 11 class. The lesson was on Esther and about how fasting can bless our lives. The class went really well and all the kids kept telling us that we were swag teachers. Yep you got that right!

Well that was my week. Oh and if you want to have a study that will strengthen your testimony of Joseph Smith and the restoration read 2 Nephi 3 (Lehi's dying words to his son Joseph) and Isaiah 29:4, 10-14

Love you!!!!

Notes from home:

It is so interesting how our thoughts and actions can be so much alike even across the country. The scripture she shared above is one that I shared with the young women in our ward a couple of weeks ago. She also said that when they share lessons with members they have them share the story that they have read and how they can apply it to their lives. This is exactly what we are having our youth do as part of a Book of Mormon Challenge.

I received an email from the mission home regarding the holidays, phone call/skype and Christmas gifts. There really isn't much she needs and she has very limited space to carry items between transfers. The best gift she could receive is letters from her family and friends. Including your testimony, pictures and articles from church magazines would also be great. It would be great if we could fill her mailbox throughout the holiday season.

Since she just started training, we know that she will be in the same apartment for another 11 weeks. If you would like to mail something to her, let me know and I can get you her mailing address, or you can send it to the mission home. If it is received by December 12th, they will make sure she gets it before Christmas.

Thank you for your continued support of our sweet missionary.

Mission home address:

Sister Whitney Collins
New Hampshire Manchester Mission
2 Bedford Farms Dr, Ste 208
Bedford, NH 03110