Sister Bailey Anne Harrison

Sunday, February 5, 2017

The Week of the CRABS!

January 16, 2017

This week Sister Heaton and I had a pretty "stretch yourself" goal of having 30 lessons in one week, then something horrible happened. Every single person in Brookings got sick. Okay so maybe not everyone is sick but we had so many lessons cancel this last week, and at times it was a little discouraging. We ended up having 17 lessons, and we tried our hardest to try to at least get to 20, but not so much. Oh well, so the cookie crumbles sometimes!

Something really weird happened this week. But it was more like a cool kind of weird. Sister Heaton and I were in Correlation with our Ward Mission Leader and he gave us a referral to someone who he knew in town. So the next night we went and tried to contact her and she told us to come back in a week, well that's fine, we didn't think much of it. Well that night while we were syncing our ipads at the church we got an email about a referral from the church, it had the same exact address of the referral from Brother Johnson, but a completely different name. So we decided to go back there first thing the next morning and sure enough the referral from church headquarters was the other referrals roommate! But the one from church headquarters referred herself! I had never seen that happen before. Apparently she is a member of the church and has recently decided that she wants to come back to church. We are so excited for her!

This week we were able to meet with some new investigators who we found last week! It is a cute little family, a single mom and her 2 girls. And man I love them so much already. They were so excited to be able to learn about the gospel and so involved in the first lesson. When we invited them to come to church they were SO excited. Then on Saturday night we got a text from the mom saying that her and her girls were sick and they weren't going to be able to come this week. Sister Heaton and I were so sad. But we are excited for them to be able to try and come next week. We are going to be talking to them about baptism this next week and hopefully be putting them on date! We are stoked!

This week Sister Heaton and I were able to spend a little bit of time in Gold Beach, which is about an hour north of us, to do some tracting for the Senior Couple who is living there. We were able to find a few people who were interested in talking with us, and honestly it was a beautiful day so Sister Heaton and I just soaked in the sunlight as we were walking around tracting. Although we did meet one interesting fellow. I don't even remember his name, but he had some interesting views on the missionary work aspect of religions. He told us that it was like we were an NFL team drafting our players into our religion. Interesting notion that he had there. As you can tell, he really didn't want to talk to us!

This next week we are going to be going up to Coos Bay in order to have Zone Conference with President Russell, which we are super excited for. The other exciting thing about it is that we have car inspections. But this isn't a normal car inspections because the mission is getting a bunch of new cars, and so the cleanest car in every zone is getting a new car. Soooo you could say that Sister Heaton and I spent a good hour and a half today really deep cleaning our car. It looks very very nice.

The other night, Sister Heaton and I were really struggling. We were trying to contact people and everyone that we could think of we went to and they were sick. So we stopped and said a prayer at one point and I decided to try and call a recent convert, who we have been trying to get ahold of for weeks. She went out of town with her husband, who we are also teaching. And we had called them every day for 2 weeks, and nothing had happened. So reluctantly we called, thinking we would get the same response, but NO! This time she answered and she was SO excited to talk to us. We were able to talk to her about her trip and then she decided to invite us over for dinner because we didn't have one that night, and guess what they were having? CRAB. So we were able to help her finish making the crab, she taught us how to cook them so that they don't scream in the pot, and then taught us how to crack the shell open so we wouldn't have food flying. It was a good night at dinner. I liked the crab a lot, Sister Heaton didn't really liked it, they kept offering her more and more and she kept trying to find excuses until she finally said no, lol. But it was a good night and we were able to teach them a little lesson. It was perfect!

Yesterday during my studies I was really struggling, and I wasn't sure why. I was trying to figure out what to study and just nothing was feeling right. So I decided to open up to Preach My Gospel and it referenced the scripture Mosiah 3:19 which reads:

19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

When I went on to continue to study what a natural man was and who a saint was I realized that a natural man took on the form of a man who is of the world, or a sinful man. While a saint is a man who is set apart from the world and who is trying his hardest to become like God. Obviously we can't reach that point on earth, but it was an interesting thought. But then, it is interesting because we aren't all perfect. But it says we can become a saint as we use the Atonement of Jesus Christ every day. Then it lists a bunch of Christ like attributes. It is important that we take upon ourselves the atonement so tha

t we can become the saint that we know our Heavenly Father wants us to become.

I was thinking about this a lot yesterday during sacrament meeting, and then we had an AMAZING sacrament talk by a lady in our ward. She got up and showed her vulnerability, and told us that she had felt like she shouldn't prepare anything for the talk she was about to give, but to trust in her Heavenly Father and that the spirit would direct her. And I am not kidding, this talk was fantastic. She was able to bear powerful testimony about how the spirit has directed her in her life. About how receiving revelation from God is his way of trying to get a personal relationship with him. About how Heavenly Father truly is her best friend. About how we can have personal conversations with our Heavenly Father through prayer. And how prayer is the way that we can call home. Sometimes on my mission I have had moments that I have really just wanted to call home, just for 5 minutes, how can that hurt? Obviously I haven't done that, but I am so grateful for the knowledge that I can ALWAYS turn to prayer. I can kneel down and pray to my Heavenly Father in seconds, and he is willing to answer because he wants to have that PERSONAL relationship with me. I love my Heavenly Father so much, and I was so grateful for that talk yesterday!

Thank you so much for all of the love and support from my fan club, I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

---Remember who you are and who God EXPECTS you to become.---

Love, Your Favorite Sister Missionary,

Sister Harrison

I love how HAPPY she is!!

and how BEAUTIFUL, inside and out!

Hello my dear fan club

January 9, 2017

Hello my dear fan club! For some reason today I am having such a hard time getting into the writing the weekly email kind of mood. So you may have to bear with me a little bit for a second. This week has been pretty EPIC though. I think one night I wrote the word EPIC about 6 times in one journal entry because it was just a great day. But enough of that, lets get going to the good stuff!
On Monday we were able to go up with the Sheffels and have some fun in the snow. I don't remember how much I wrote about it. But usually once a transfer the Sheffels in our ward (a recent convert family) try to take the missionaries out to do something for Pday. They call it Sheffel Pday. Well we were supposed to go to secret beach on Monday, but that didn't happen because of the snow. But here in Brookings it wasn't real snow people. This was hail mixed with a little rain that people called snow. Really it was just slush. The kids even got a snow day on Tuesday, I NEVER in my life have gotten a snow day. And they got it for not so real snow. Anyway, the Sheffels took us up river about 30 minutes to Gardner Ridge and we had some fun in REAL snow. It was beautiful, winter wonderland for sure! We had a heater going and I spent most of my time next to that heater and they also brought a portable stove top and we made hot chocolate. Seriously it was great! But eventually we had to come back down here and really the "snow" was gone by the next day. The rest of our Monday was pretty uneventful, we had family home evening with the Applebakers and we were able to play bingo with them so that was pretty epic. But once we got out of our lesson we had a text saying that the mission was going to have a conference call to announce the new mission president! So we went home and got on the conference call and their names are Dale and Netta (I think) Orton from Cedar City, Utah! I really don't know if I am allowed to tell anyone yet, but they told us and didn't say we couldn't! They said that it will be published in the news in 2 weeks, so now it is only a week so I guess my fan club can know! I am really excited to be able to get to know them, they are expected to be in Oregon on June 28th and President and Sister Russell are planning on leaving on July 1st!
On Tuesday something cool happened, I got my first Media Referral ever on my mission from a member in Arizona! Super cool, her mother in law lives here in Brookings and she wanted us to go and help her move. So we were able to go and talk to her and apparently we were a little too late and she had already hired a moving company and she just thought that was going to be easier. But she is just moving to the other side of town so she gave us her number and new address and told us to come by in about a week to help her unpack. So awesome. We are pretty excited about it.
This week while we were doing some tracting we accidentally tracted into a less active member! She opened the door and told us to come in. Well she has a non member brother living with her right now who is smoking and drinking. And when we left their house we went to a members house and the member said "got a smokin problem sisters?" oops... so now whenever we go to their house we have to wear clothes that it is okay to smell like smoke in. But this less active member told us about how the last missionaries who stopped by to talk about her weren't interested in her so now we are really trying to get to know her better. And she even said that she would come to sacrament meeting next week! So we will keep trying with her.
On Friday we had the wonderful opportunity to drive to Coos Bay again. This was the 3rd time in 3 weeks. And I really really love the drive. But MAN. I get so tired by the end of the day because of it. We left on Friday at 6 am and didn't get back until 6 pm. So it was just a rough day. But we had a really awesome Zone Training Meeting. President Russell has brought out some goals as a mission for baptisms for the months of March (63), April (87) , May (87) and June (96). These are high numbers so as a zone we were supposed to talk about how we were going to reach these goals. It also brought up a lot of feelings that people were having that we struggling, but at the same time we were able to talk through a lot of those things and I think we were able to grow a little bit more as a zone. It was pretty awesome in the end. And one thing that one of our zone leaders, Elder Gage, said that Sister Heaton and I keep saying to each other is. "You have to EXPECT it." Whether that means we are walking up to a door during tracting, we have to expect that person to be a new investigator. Or when we are inviting someone to baptism, we have to expect that they are going to accept. It is all about expecting what is going to come. It in the end you are able to change everything with your mindset, and that is what I took from the meeting. That I need to change the way that I am thinking. The field is white and ready to harvest in all areas of the world, and it is ready here in Brookings!
So now is time for the story about Kevin. This week the senior couple missionaries from Port Orford asked us if we could pick up their dry cleaning and bring it to them before Zone Training Meeting on Friday. (There is only one dry cleaner from here to Port Orford) The couple told us that they gave the owner a Book of Mormon and that we should follow up on if he read it. Well we went in and asked for the order and he realized that he needed to repress the suit and so he took that time to explain to us a few things about the dry cleaning business. Anyway we ended up being there for 30 minutes, and it was about 2:30, and Sister Heaton and I hadn't eaten lunch yet and he still wasn't done with the suit. So we said that we would come back in 30 minutes. We came back and somehow we were still there for 30 minutes. But we were able to talk to him about what we do as missionaries, invite him to church, give him our number, and get his number and address all before we left. In our minds we thought, awesome, so cool new investigator on the rise. Well Saturday night we decided to stop by his house and remind him about church. We went and he said that he would just need a ride, so we told him we would find someone to pick him up at 9:45. Well we first thought to call Brother Sheffel. Well we went to the Sheffels house and they were asleep at 8:30. So then we called our Ward Mission Leader, Brother Johnson and asked if he could pick him up and he said oh sure of course. Well, we got a call from Brother Johnson, who happens to be a cop here in town, a few minutes later telling us not to talk to Kevin anymore. Saying that he has been accused of stalking women and has been to prison. And that it would be best to give him to the Elders. So our awesome potential is now in the Elders hands, and Sister Heaton and I are totally okay with that one!
This week we had about 30 minutes before Eli's baptism and Sister Heaton and I decided to go tracting and the biggest miracle happened. WE FOUND 4 NEW INVESTIGATORS IN 30 MINUTES!!!!! It was so epic and we were totally following the spirit on that one. 3 of them are a family and I just think they are awesome, and I can already see them in white. While the other 1... might just want to bash with us... so we are preparing ourselves for that one. But other then that we are so so so excited to be able to start teaching that family this week. The field may not actually be white here in Brookings, but it is ready to harvest.
So of course you saw from my pictures that we had a baptism this week. His name is Eli and he is 10 years old. His mom April recently got baptized in September and his Stepdad Jeremy was a less active until about a year ago. Now Jeremy is our Gospel Principles teacher. It is really awesome and while we were on Skype with Sister Datwyler and Sister Heiden April was talking about how they are making plans to be able to go to the temple as a family. It was just super awesome to hear about and I am so excited for the steps that they are making. Eli is the oldest in their family so he is being such a great example to all of his siblings. Especially since at first Eli said that he didn't want to be baptized until he was 21. This was a HUGE step for him and I can not wait to see where he is going to go in the church.
Well fan club there were a lot of amazing miracles that happened this week but it looks like we are about out of time. I love you all so much and I hope that you all have a fabulous week! Remember, change the mindset!!
---Remember who you are and who God expects you to become---
Love, Your Favorite Sister Missionary,
Sister Harrison

Thursday, January 5, 2017

This Wind is CRUEL and that's COOL!

This week has been such an awesome week in Brookings, Sister Heaton and I were able to make the celestial goal for finding 4 new investigators and we were able to in our finding efforts strive to use referrals. Last night when we were sleeping I woke up in the middle of the night to what sounded like really hard rain, when I woke up this morning I found that it was NOT rain but that it was a whole bunch of HAIL!! Seriously looks like a Winter Wonderland outside and I could not be more happy about it! We have a family that is going to take us up the mountain today to be able to play in the snow a little bit. A member texted us this morning and said "you should probably now that this is WILD weather for Oregon" but what you should all know is that I LOVE THE SNOW! So I am feeling a little bit at home this morning!

Last Pday Sister Heaton and I spent most of the day shopping. We both lacked the fact that we did not bring any kind of a hoody on our missions, so we decided to try and find a Brookings hoody. Well we soon realized that because it is the off season that NO ONE is selling Brookings Hoodies, except one place and it was like $45. So I decided that I will have to come back to Brookings when more of the tourist shops are open, deal? Deal. But it was a good Pday nonetheless, and we were able to just relax most of the day. I don't know if I have expressed these feelings before by Pday is sometimes like my least favorite day of the week because there is so much stuff to get done and not a lot of time. And it is the only day of the week that we are allowed to nap and I HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO NAP. What the goodness. But that is okay, the hard working missionary keeps going on!

On Tuesday we were able to go up to Coos Bay, AGAIN. But this time we were able to make that beautiful drive to be able to have interviews with President Russell. And they were great. We were only really there for about an hour then we had to drive back down to Brookings, but it was really good to sit down and talk to my mission president. He always has something good to say that I need to hear. We talked about repentance for a little while and asked me what I thought it meant to repent. So we talked about that then he told me that is what I am called to do. To teach the people in Brookings right now about repentance and how they can come closer to Christ through doing that. We as missionaries are called to Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts. And I love that. He then asked me what scripture from the Book of Mormon has affected my missionary service the most. And that was a really hard question to answer because I feel like there are oh so many, I mean the Book of Mormon is wonderful. But I decided to share with him Alma 37:6, which says, "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass," and I love this scripture because it is shows that by the little thing that we do in this life we are able to become the people that we are to become. By me teaching the simple things of the gospel I change peoples lives. By me doing the simple things that my Heavenly Father has commanded me to do everyday I am able to draw closer to him. And I love that. President Russell then talked to me about training and he said that I was doing a great job, I told him that I feel like she is training me more than the other way around, and he just told me that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing, which was nice to hear from him. All in all it was a great interview. We also met with Sister Russell so she could go over our Area Book, and she told us a few things. The biggest news is that at the Worldwide Missionary Devotional on the 25th of this month the church has made some adjustments to the missionary schedule that will be announced. My first question was "Do we get to sleep in an extra hour?" She laughed then said no. Darn it. But I am excited to see what our leaders are changing. After we were done with interviews the senior couple, The Sivulas, took Sister Heaton and I to lunch in Bandon, and Sister Heaton had her first fish. I freakin love Cod, I don't know what it is. I am beginning to crave it. I don't really know what is wrong with me. Also we went to this little candy shop called Cranberry Sweet and Sister Heaton and I tried Bacon chocolate, and it was nasty. But they had A TON of free candy. So cool.

On Wednesday Sister Heaton and I were able to have the opportunity of finding a new investigator and then teaching this lady named Shelly. Shelly was investigating the church this time last year until she was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. And once she started going through chemo she told the sisters that she had to stop meeting with them. But recently Shelly has been coming to church! She has been going through a lot of trials but she is seeing truly how the church is blessing her life. She received a Priesthood blessing just a few weeks ago, and last week when she went in for a scan, all the doctors were surprised to find that she had no cancer in her body. SERIOUSLY. What a miracle. This was our first lesson with Shelly and she has already told us that she knows the Book of Mormon is true. She was at church yesterday and Sister Heaton and I have plans to put her on date for Baptism this coming week!

On Thursday Sister Heaton and I were able to teach a 14 year old girl named Kaylee. Kaylee has received almost all of the lessons from the missionaries. But the problem is that her mom has not given her permission to be baptized. I hadn't really had a lesson with Kaylee yet so this was the first time I was able to sit down and talk to her. And really ask her what she thought we could do as missionaries to help her mom feel comfortable with the church. Kaylee told us that she had this feeling for awhile and that she hadn't done it yet. But that she felt like she needed to invite her LDS friends over to the house so that her Mom could get to know them better. I smiled and I told Kaylee that I know that was a feeling that was coming from the spirit so we invited her to do that during the rest of her Christmas break. She is so strong in the gospel already, she has been at church every week and has even given a talk in sacrament meeting. Seriously she is the greatest. I pray that hopefully one day her Mom will give her permission to be baptized!

Something amazing happened on Friday. Sister Heaton and I had a bunch of lessons planned with people and they all fell through. But we decided to go tracting instead. And literally the first 2 doors that we knocked on became investigators who were interested in hearing more about the gospel. Heavenly Father is so great! We have lessons scheduled with these people next week and we are excited to see where things will go with them. We almost got 3 doors in a row until we started to invite this woman to read the Book of Mormon. Then she told us to get out of her house... awkward. She was so nice before that happened! Then on Friday night it was super cold and we didn't think that it would be best to be out tracting so we were prompted to call a member in our ward who is older and always loves visitors. Well when we got there we found out that her non member husband was there! What?!!? Super cool. We were able to share the video called "Shower of Heavenly Blessings" and talk about how we have a loving Heavenly Father. He has some pretty interesting views on things. But we are excited to teach him!

On New Years Eve Sister Heaton and I decided to drive up river to do some tracting, because it was the end of the month and we had some extra miles! While we were up there we tracted into a member! Crazy how things work out sometimes. And Saturday was the day that Sister Heaton and I wanted to reach our goal of Referrals for the week. Well the member actually invited us to go meet his neighbors! So we were able to reach our goal on referrals as well! The neighbors weren't very interested but it was good to talk to them about what they believed in and we were even able to offer some service to them whenever they need it!

This was probably the first New Years Eve in YEARS that I didn't stay up until midnight. After we had dinner that night we were told by our leaders to be inside for the rest of the night. So we were able to hear the fireworks and gun shots from inside our apartment. Sister Heaton and I were even in bed and almost asleep by 9:45. So you could say that was a good New Years Present for us!!

This week before we went to dinner we had a few extra minutes so Sister Heaton and I decided that we should tracted the houses around their house. So we did and we met this one lady who just let us into her house on the spot, it was AWESOME! We then realized that she was a Less Active member who hadn't been to church in about a year. But it was cool that we were able to be guided to her house and we now have plans to be able to go and visit her next week! So cool.

On Sunday we were able to have the baptismal interview for Eli, who is getting baptized on SATURDAY! We are so so so excited for him. So now we are just trying to get his program and things together. He told us that he wanted his parents to do literally EVERYTHING. Prayers, talks, everything. Well Bishop didn't agree with that so we are now trying to find other people to do those things (:

To finish off my letter I wanted to share a scripture that I read this morning during studies. Because of the New Year I made some goals for myself and one of them is to again finish the Book of Mormon in 6 months, so I am just at the beginning. But 1 Nephi 3:15-16 struck a chord with me this morning. And it reads: "As the Lord liveth, and as we live, we will not go down unto our father in the wilderness until we have accomplished the thing which the Lord hath commanded us. Wherefore, let us be faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord" I put myself in the shoes of Nephi when I was reading this scripture and I compared it to my missionary work. I am not going to leave Oregon until my work is done, and that is a fact, so I need to be faithful in continuing to be obedient so that I will be able to return to my Heavenly Father one day and tell him that I did all that I could. And that can go with anyone who reads this scripture. At this time in our lives we are going through whatever trial we may be going through. But I know that as we continue living the commandment that our Heavenly Father has given us that WE WILL BE BLESSED!

I hope that everyone is having a fantastic New Year! And I hope everyone is keeping safe. Stay warm and try to make some REALISTIC goals for the New Year!!! I love you all!

---Remember who you are and who God expects you to become--- Thomas S Monson

Love, Your Favorite Sister Missionary,

Sister Harrison

Spring Sheffel and I, I just love her.

It started getting foggy and the snow started getting more wet so we decided to head on out!

We had it made under the canopy there was a heater and a little stove making us some hot chocolate, you could say I spent most of my time there!

The trees were just beautiful covered in the snow!

Carly Sheffel wanted to get in for a picture, too cute, it was just pouring buckets up in the mountains!

Cute Sister Heaton and I

I love the snow!!! I was in my happy place today

You can not even believe how excited this announcement made me. I have been talking about how much I want them to make Book of Mormon videos like the Bible videos, my dream is coming true folks!! But we have to wait until 2018 😢😢😢

I took a screen shot of this because if you look at Monday it says snow!! My prayers have been answered 🙏🏼🙏🏼


Seriously, So Close to California that it hurts!		People might have looked at us like we are crazy, it's fine!

I am such a spaz and I am so glad that Sister Heaton just lives with it lol she loves me.

This was a Donut bun burger I ate the other day, it was not worth the price and it made me super sick. But the sweet potato fries 👌🏼

Every time we go up to Coos Bay we pass this Dinosaur Park and I always want to take a picture next to them, thankfully Sister Heaton made my wish come true!!!

Sister Heaton caught this awesome Sunset on the beach last Pday, I thought all would enjoy

Christmas is now over, and the work goes forward!

This week a lot has happened and I feel like Sister Heaton and I have not had one second to stop and take a breather. But it has been so awesome to be able to serve during the Christmas season, and according to my return date, I will be able to do it all again next year for Christmas. I am so grateful for all the people that I was able to talk to this last week. President Russell gave us a challenge to invite as many people as possible to church for Christmas. Sister Heaton and I made it a goal to invite everyone that we talked to and we only got 1 person to church on Christmas. But we were able to get quite a few less actives there who hadn't been to church in a long time. So that was good. I think we should always try to think of every Sunday as a Christmas Sunday. Every Sunday we go to church to be able to worship Jesus Christ and to be able to learn more about him, isn't that the reason that we celebrate Christmas too? I think so! I think as people we should strive to remember Christ more and more in our lives every single day.

This last Monday Sister Heaton and I were able to go and check out the Christmas lights that are at Azalea park here in Brookings, it wasn't ANYTHING like Temple Square (for example there was a light fixture of a wine glass pour wine into the bottle...) but it was a lot of fun to go out and be able to talk to people at the light show. It was a lot of fun too because we were able to run into so many people that we know there. So we were able to wish everyone that we saw a very Merry Christmas. I love the lights at Christmas time and I thought it was very special to do it that way to remind us to Light the World (:

On Tuesday we were able to go to Barbara house and do some service. And you know when you hear service most of the time you think like yard work or shoveling snow or things like that. Well this service was even harder. You aren't going to believe this. Barbara made us.... make Christmas cookies! It was seriously a blast. I think we made over 100 cookies and it was so much fun. I loved it because being on a mission you don't really get to cook all that often. But doing that service for her I think was more of a treat for Sister Heaton and I!

On Wednesday we were able to have Zone Conference in Coos Bay with President Russell and his wife. I seriously love that Zone Conferences are now going to be every 6 weeks because I love receiving the counsel we do from our Mission President every time we see him. This Zone Conference we were asked to prepare a 15-20 minute talk about Coming to Know Christ in our Hearts. And we knew that President Russell was going to call on some of us to speak. Well, I talked during our last Zone Conference, so I was CONVINCED that I was not going to speak this time. Well guess what. I was the last speaker. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Just kidding, although I am really glad that I prepared because all the time people get up there and say " I should have prepared more " or " If I would have known that I was speaking... ". While writing my talk I felt like there was so many different things that I could talk about because you can do so many different things to Come to know Christ in your heart. Well I talked about how I have been reading the Book of Mormon for the last 6 months, and I just finished on Christmas Eve. There was a quote from Jeffery R. Holland when he is talking about the Book of Mormon that states, “The principal and commanding figure in the Book of Mormon, from first chapter to last, is the Lord Jesus Christ. … The book centers upon that which scriptural testaments have always centered since the days of Adam and Eve--the declaration to all that through the atonement of the Son of God, ‘as thou hast fallen thou mayest be redeemed, and all mankind, even as many as will’ [Moses 5:9]… The Book of Mormon is the preeminent statement of God’s covenant with and his love for his children here on earth. It is his definitive latter-day declaration regarding the atoning sacrifice of his Son”

And then I shared 1 Nephi 13:40, when Nephi receives revelation about the gospel here in the Americas, and it says:

40 And the angel spake unto me, saying: These last records, which thou hast seen among the Gentiles, shall establish the truth of the first, which are of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, and shall make known the plain and precious things which have been taken away from them; and shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father, and the Savior of the world; and that all men must come unto him, or they cannot be saved.

Instead of talking 15-20 minutes we only have to talk for about 2-4, just sharing our testimonies. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I had to study the life of the Savior these last couple of weeks to see how I could come to know him in my heart. I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon and for the fact that it testifies of Christ on every single page. The Book of Mormon testifies on average of Christ every 1.7 verses. While the New Testament testifies of him every 2.1. I love love love the Book of Mormon. And I know that it is true with all of my heart. I am so grateful for my Savior this time of the year especially and I am striving to be grateful for him every time of the year!

After Zone Conference, I had to leave Sister Heaton in Coos Bay to go on exchanges with one of our Sister Training Leaders while Sister Hepworth and I drove all the way back to Brookings. Did I mention that day we had to wake up at 5 to be able to be in Coos Bay by 8? Seriously. We didn't get back to Brookings until closer to 7. Such a long day. But that drive from Brookings to Coos Bay is all on the coast and you see the ocean the entire way, so we can't complain too much (: But exchanges with Sister Hepworth were really good. We were able to teach a couple of lessons and she was able to give me some advice on training. Funny story though, before Sister Hepworth got transferred to the coast she was companions with Sister Nowell in Eugene. So the entire exchange she kept making comments about how I am a mini Sister Nowell, you know, mother like daughter!

On Friday Sister Heaton and I had quite a bit of time to tract and Sister Heaton had a thought to go try and talk to this guy that we tracted into last week. So we went over there and when we knocked on his door he wasn't home. She was a little discouraged because she was certain that thought came from the Holy Ghost. But we just kept going and decided as a companionship to go and tract an apartment building that was across the street. Just when it felt like we were having no luck we knocked on one door and a lady answered and said, "Oh your missionaries! Come on in!" We got talking and shared with her Light the World and she told us that she lived in Utah once, I then asked her if she has any relation to anyone in the church and she told us that she herself is a member she just hasn't gone to church in years, but recently has felt like she may want to go back! This taught Sister Heaton and I an important lesson, sometimes when we feel the spirit about one person it isn't always what it was going for. We are excited to go back and meet with Leanore!

On Christmas Eve we were able to have dinner at our Ward Mission Leaders home, they fed us Filet Minon. It was delicious. And then we were able to come to the church for a mission wide conference call where we were able to sing a couple of Christmas songs and hear our Mission PResident bear testimony of the Savior. And then we were able to skype in for a zone testimony meeting, and let me tell you it was a little weird to skype into a testimony meeting. But it was pretty cool to be able to feel the spirit even though we were 100 miles away form the rest of our zone. We were then able to go home and sleep, I tried to convince Sister Heaton to open our presents at midnight but she wasn't having it!

Christmas Morning we were able to wake up and open presents then go to the Rushtons and eat breakfast with them which was super awesome. Then we were able to go to church which I think was one of the best parts of the day. Then we were able to skype home which was probably the BEST part of the day. I love my family so much and I am so grateful for opportunity that I had to talk to them and share my testimony with them. I am so grateful to be in Oregon at this time sharing the gospel to all these people. Seriously it is the best and I can't imagine myself anywhere else in the world. Now I have to explain to you a time that was not the best part of our day yesterday. Sister Heaton and I were making a dessert for dinner at the Sheffels and we hadn't checked the phone because it was on silent, but Sister Sheffel told us between 5 and 6. Well we decided to go over there at 5. So we went to go leave and Sister Heaton was trying to back us and our car wouldn't go back. She finally came beside me and asked what was wrong and all of these different warning things on the car started coming up. The first thought that came to my head was call Elder Mabey (our vehicle coordinator) but then I thought, well what is he going to do, he is hundreds of miles away and it is CHristmas. So we called the Elders and they said they would be right over. So they came with Brother Sheffel (who works at les schwab here in town) and they start checking our car over and can't seem to see whats wrong. So they get a flash light and realize that our car is JACKED UP WITH WOODEN BLOCKS! I start freaking out trying to figure out why someone would do this to us and started thinking the worst. I literally kept saying out loud "I just don't feel safe any more..." So they fix the car and we finally get to the Sheffels and Spring sees me and gives me a hug and I tell her that I am not feeling safe about all of this. She then looks at the Elders and Wayne and says. They are messing with you Sister, they did this to your car. I thought I was going to kill them right then and there. So my dear fan club if you could think up some revenge for Sister Heaton and I, that would be great!

Other then that Christmas was freaking awesome (:

I just wanted to Thank everyone for all of the notes or gifts that were sent to me this Christmas Season. I think Sister Rushton was getting sick of Sister Heaton and I the last two weeks because between the two of us we were at her house almost every day. I am going to try and write thank you notes to everyone but if I don't have the time to get to that I want to say thank you for the love and support that you showed to me (: Everything was so great, truly an amazing Christmas!

I love you all so much and I hope that you all have a wonderful week. And don't forget about Christ, even though his birthday already passed (:

--Remember who you are and who God expects you to become-- Thomas S Monson

Love, Your Favorite Sister Missionary,

Sister Harrison