Monday, February 25, 2019

We had a good week!  We were able to have a girl from China come to church with us!  She responded to our text and wanted to come.  We got a lift for her and we are teaching her on Wednesday!

We were also able to find a new friend through the area book this week.  She felt the Spirit so strong as we shared the First Vision.  

We're having some problems with the missionary email, all the missionaries are.  No time. Sorry.

Monday, February 18, 2019

Sister Coffman is the best!  She is from the great state of Kentucky.  She is 20 years old.  She has been out for almost a year and has served in Northern Ireland and Scotland.  She likes to go hiking and camping.  She has four brothers.  She loves riding our bikes.*  

*Sister Coffman was so excited when she found out we had bikes.  We rode our bikes for a while so we could go chap in a new neighborhood.  We were locking up our bikes and heard a 'ssssssssssssssssssssssss' sound.  We both looked at each other with fear in our eyes.  After searching, we found the puncture in Sister Coffman's back tire.  There was a rock embedded in the tire.  We didn't really know what to do, but we did our best to cover it (with a hair tie and the cover to my hand sanitizer) then left to go chap.  Three hours later we came back to the bikes and the tire was completely flat.  It was an hour and a half walk back to the flat.  We started walking the bikes back, but Sister Coffman's tire completely fell apart.  We had to call some members to come to our rescue.  Only we had to call two members because their cars weren't big enough to get us and the bikes somewhere.  They gave us a lift and the bikes followed.  The members took it to a bike shop the next day and all was well.  They should be good to go now.  

On Tuesday we were chapping and a lady told us that it was a bad time and to try back in a couple days.  We went back on Thursday and she invited us right in.  She shared with us that in the last year she has turned her life around and talked about how she has been able to recognize God's hand every step of the way.  She told us that the first time we came to her door she was a little wary, but because we came again she believed that God sent us to her door and He was trying to send her a message.  The Spirit was so strong in the lesson.  Unfortunately, when we called her later in the week she told us this 'was not for her.'  Definitely still a miracle, nonetheless.  

On Valentine's Day we went around telling people that we were sharing a message about the love of God.  I think only one person caught on, but we get to share that 365 days a year!  Not just on Valentine's day.

On Friday we were having dinner with some members and after dinner the husband started to read an article about how missionaries can now communicate with our families.  We all thought he was kidding because he is a major jokester.  He kept going with the article and all of us didn't believe him.  The wife then went on to lds.org and BAM.  I'm not sure who freaked out more, us or them.  It is so crazy that we are allowed to do that now.  "HOME CENTERED."  

Monday & Tuesday, February 11&12, 2019

Monday:

Moves call:  As you probably predicted I am staying in Cumbernauld.  Sister Cluff went to Paisley and I am getting Sister Coffman later today.  I don't have a lot of time to email, but I'm excited.  Sister Coffman and I were in the same district 6 or 7 or 8 months ago.  I don't know much about her, but she's from Kentucky.

I'll probably have more time to email later :)

Tuesday:

Well this is a bit later hahaha, but now I can actually email!

Sister Coffman arrived in Glasgow yesterday at about 6, so by the time we got back to Cumbernauld everything was closed.  Therefore, we're emailing today!  She came from Lisburn in Northern Ireland, so she had a long journey with a train, a ferry, and a bus!

Sad news about ____:  We had nearly sorted everything out with the Word of Wisdom and his baptism, but on Wednesday when he walked into the lesson he opened by telling us it would be the last time we would be meeting.  He apologized to us for 'wasting our time.'  That was really sad.  We invited him to continue to read the Book of Mormon and pray and told him he is always welcome at church.  

Sunday was Stake Conference in Glasgow.   Those were the all the missionaries in Glasgow Stake as well as the departing missionaries from this transfer.  Stake Conference was great and it was so fun to see members from the Dumbarton Ward.  They are the best!  

So usually when missionaries are moving they move on Monday morning, but you never know what might happen.  I told Sister Cluff on Saturday night that I thought she should pack as much as she could and be ready to leave on Sunday night.  Well, Sunday night rolled around and at about 7:30 we got a call from the zone leaders asking if we could go to Glasgow and leave in about 20 minutes.  That was a bit hectic, but we got everything together and managed just fine.  

Yesterday was mostly dedicated to helping missionaries get to their plane/ferry/bus/train/subway.  It was slightly crazy because a bunch of people have to go through Glasgow to make connections from buses to trains or from one train station to another.  It's probably quite comical to watch a bunch of 20 year olds running all day through Glasgow with luggage, doing there best to make sure no one misses a train.  We did a pretty good job and only 2 people missed their bus to make the ferry.  Oopsie!

I am really excited for this transfer with Sister Coffman!  We will have lots of fun together.  I can't believe this is the start of my final transfer and I don't know where the time has gone.  It's really scary.  For now, I'll just be enjoying every second I can of being a missionary.

Love you lots!

Love,

Kristina

February 4, 2019 - So grateful to be a Missionary!

THE BIKES:  I haven't crashed, but let's just say you won't be calling me the next Lance Armstrong anytime soon.  I am very wobbly, but that's okay.  We were only able to ride them twice this week, due to snow/ice, but for those two days BOY WAS I SORE.  

____ had his baptismal interview this week and most everything went over smoothly.  While talking about the Word of Wisdom he mentioned that he takes cannabis oil from the pharmacy to help with his epilepsy.  It is legal, but not prescribed and it has been helping with his seizures.  We weren't sure on what to do, so we called President Macdonald.  He wasn't sure either, so he has been in contact with the people that he asks questions to.  He also had a brief interview with ____ over the phone, but he is still unsure.  For now, we have to hold off on the baptism, but we'll see what happens with that.  

This week was absolutely FREEZING!  BUT was it too cold for ice cream?  No, never.  Imagine an ice cream truck in America:  Hot day, middle of the afternoon, drives around with the music playing and all the kids come running out.  Now, here is a Scottish ice cream truck:  Middle of winter, dark outside, drive and park somewhere and hope for the best.

Well for the last year I have heard ice cream trucks around the neighborhoods, but I have never actually seen one.  Sister Cluff and I saw one on Tuesday and just had to get ice cream, even though it was below freezing.  Well, on Wednesday we were walking and what do we see?  ANOTHER ICE CREAM TRUCK.  We walked by it and starting talking to the people.  Then they gave us a free slushie and a hot dog!  Free lunch woohoo!  On Thursday we were chapping and we heard the music in the distance.  About 20 minutes later where is the ice cream truck?  4 HOUSES DOWN.  So we got ice cream again, just to say that we had something from an ice cream truck 3 days in a row in below freezing temperatures.   

Recently, I have been studying the General Conference Ensign.  I love to read the words of the modern day prophets.  I especially loved the quote from President Oaks, "we are a missionary people. We are sometimes asked why we send missionaries to so many nations, even among Christian populations. We receive the same question about why we give many millions of dollars of humanitarian aid to persons who are not members of our Church and why we do not link this aid to our missionary efforts. We do this because we esteem all mortals as children of God—our brothers and sisters—and we want to share our spiritual and temporal abundance with everyone."  It reminded me of the great privilege I have to be here and to share my abundance.  'Because I have been given much I too must give.'  I am so grateful to be a missionary each and every day.  

Monday, January 28, 2019 - BEST NEWS OF THE CENTURY

Sister Cluff got super sick this week, so we spent a lot of time in the flat.  We did go out to teach ____.  We taught him the Law of Chastity and Tithing.  Because Sister Cluff was so sick I basically taught it by myself.  She is better now and I think I managed to stay healthy and dodge that bullet!  ____ was good though!  He readily accepted both commandments and is getting more and more excited for baptism.

On Friday, we had exchange in Glasgow.  It was a great day.  Every lesson we had scheduled fell through, but we had an amazing day of finding.  We talked to so many prepared people that wanted to meet up!

One time Sister Cluff and I were talking about prayer and how it works.  She shared that her dad always says that you can't pray for a shiny, new, red bike and expect it to come.  God will give you the means to work for it and you can get that shiny, red bike.  Well...this week that was proved wrong.  Elder and Sister Helps (office missionaries) called us on Saturday and delivered TWO SHINY, NEW, RED BIKES.  Locks, helmets, lights included.  It was like Christmas came a month late!  We haven't ridden them yet, but I'm sure I can tell you allllll about them next week.

Unfortunately, ____ and ____ weren't able to come to church this week because they were away traveling.  They should be there next week though.  ____ was at church again and he is doing really well.  He keeps progressing.

PROBABLY THE BEST NEWS OF THE CENTURY:  THE NASALEAN FAMILY WAS BAPTISED ON SATURDAY.  AFTER ABOUT A YEAR AND A HALF OF BEING TAUGHT BY MISSIONARIES THEY WERE BAPTISED!!!!  ROZALIA, IOAN, AND IOAN'S MOTHER.  WHAT A HAPPY DAY!  THE GOSPEL BLESSES FAMILIES!!!!!!  WHEN I HEARD THE NEWS I TOOK ABOUT 15 MINUTES CRYING TEARS OF JOY.  MIRACLES!

Monday, January 21, 2019

I don't remember if I mentioned this, but my first Sunday here a man from Brazil and his mom came to church.  His mom doesn't speak a lick of English and he speaks okay English.  Well, we were finally able to teach him this week.  He loved it!  We gave him two copies of the Book of Mormon in Portuguese.  He was so grateful.  He kept talking about how much they loved church and how it felt like family.  He said his mom won't stop talking about church.  She told him, 'I don't speak any English, but I got such a good feeling at that church.'

This week we had interviews with President Macdonald in Glasgow.  To get to Glasgow it's only about a 30 minute bus ride, but we hopped on a new bus.  It took us the scenic route.  We got to see a lot of our area that we had never been to before.  Long story short, it took us about twice as long to get to Glasgow.  We were running late (but so was President). It worked out it in our favor!  During interviews I was telling President Macdonald how much we have to walk to go chap (I don't remember if I've talked about it but WE WALK A TON).  It takes up a lot of time because of all the bridges and tunnels.  Then what happened?  I ASKED PRESIDENT MACDONALD IF WE COULD GET BIKES.  He thought is was a great idea.  Soooo...I might be sending some cute pictures home of a Sister on a bike, in the rain, in a dress, with a stylish helmet, and some nice reflective gear on her clothing.  Hahaha I don't even know when the last time I rode a bike was.

On Saturday we were walking through the town center and we bumped into a man named ____.  When it's warm enough the missionaries volunteer with him to help at one of the gardens in the area.  He said, "Follow me."  He got a table and walked through the town center.  We walked into a big carnival thing with a bunch of different charities with booths set up.  He told us to put our stuff out and talk to people.  We quickly decorated the table with the Book of Mormon, pamplets, and pass along cards.  It was fun and we were able to talk to a lot of people and be out of the cold!

We were able to teach a fomer investigator yesterday named ____.  He is from Zimbabwe and is awesome.  He has amazing faith in Christ.  He said a really powerful prayer at the end of our lesson.  You could definitely tell that he prays daily.  He was really happy when we got in touch with him.  He was taught a while back, but was too busy with school and work.  He graduated and now has a Monday to Friday, 9-5 job.  He loved what we taught him and even accepted a baptismal date.  

Yesterday Sister Cluff almost burned our flat down.  She had turned on the stove, but had accidentally left some plastic baggies sitting on the stove top.  She was doing something else and I looked up to see a bunch of smoke.  She freaked out and I was just cracking up laughing.  It was a good thing I saw that when I did.  No fires were started.  No missionaries were harmed.  We only lost about 30 plastic baggies hahaha.  

Good things are happening here in Cumbernauld.  I know the Lord is preparing people to receive us.  I am so grateful to be a part of this work.

Monday, January 14, 2019

The week we had a meeting with our whole zone in Glasgow.  On our way back Sister Cluff told me that she always feels like a little kid when we get together.  It was really funny because I told her I felt like an old kid.  I realized there were only 2 people there that had been out longer than me...that's scary.  It doesn't feel like that.  I'm not sure where the time has gone.  

We taught ____ on Tuesday and on Friday.  Our lesson on Tuesday was good, but on Friday he came into the church and sat down.  I asked him if he was able to read more of the Book of Mormon.  For the next 5 or so minutes he was speaking, but not in English...it was all gibberish.  We weren't really sure what was happening.  The member we were with started googling some things and we think he had a mini seizure.  After he composed himself he told us that he had 3 seizures in the last 3 days.  We continued with the lesson because he insisted, but he didn't retain anything.  He said he would be at church on Sunday, but he texted us yesterday saying he was in the hospital.  We haven't heard anything else, so pray for ____!

_____ had to cancel his lesson on Wednesday, but texted us and said he could meet on Thursday!  It was great because we had to go to the town that he lives in that day anyway!  We shared the Plan of Salvation with him.  He really enjoyed it and he was doing all the testifying in the lesson.  Most of the time it was just him testifying of Jesus Christ!  It was amazing.  He loved learning about it.  He wasn't able to come to church because his dad is having some health issues and he has to take care of him.    I'm not sure why or how we managed to find the people that are struggling with their health right now!

The Cumbernauld Ward set a record for me.  I spoke in Sacrament meeting yesterday.  It was only a 7-8 minute talk, but I had never seen a Ward jump on a new missionary so quickly hahah.   I spoke on prayer and 3 Nephi 18.  I shared some experiences that I had with prayer and that pretty much took up the whole time.  7 minutes is really easy to fill up!

We have conference this week and I always look forward to that!  I think I say this every time, but it is so good to be in a room of missionaries.  The Spirit is always so strong.