Week 29 - La Cygne

Hello all!

First of all, I am so glad it is finally acting like spring! I never thought I would get through this last winter, but I think it is finally over. Things are starting to turn green here and I am really excited about it. When I got to the midwest it was just starting to be fall, so I haven't really seen the beautiful green side of it. I am excited! And this week, it is supposed to get up to 80 degrees!  Woohoo! When you are outside as much as we are, weather makes a huge difference. We are working on getting bikes in our area so we can drive to our towns and then bike around them. That should be interesting!

Well, this transfer so far has been pretty great. We are really turning our focus in the branch to member missionary work. We have been watching the Preach My Gospel DVDs (yes there are DVDs) and getting some good ideas. I have really started to realize in the last couple of weeks how important and also how different the Preach My Gospel approach is from the old way of doing missionary work. One reason I know my new companion is supposed to be here is that she just came from an area that they really worked on getting the members more involved- and they had a lot of success! It's funny to think about now before my mission when I always knew I needed to be a missionary, but I didn't know how. I was afraid of it. But really, we all know we need to do it and we just don't know how, right? Basically in our branch we are having the members pick one or two nights a month that is their missionary night. They have us over for dinner, then they open their homes to having us teach. They can invite someone or we can bring someone, but the important thing is that people are able to come over and feel the spirit in their home. I never realized until I came on my mission how important it is to have a dedicated home that you can feel the spirit in. And although we don't consciously think about it, I am grateful that I grew up in a home that the spirit could reside in. And our investigators need to feel that! They need to want it in their homes and get to know members so they can see how they can be. It is so important! I can't even say it enough! So by doing this, it makes missionary work really easy. It is much less threatening to invite your friends to your house for a family night than it is to knock on doors. It just isn't effective to tract, but it is effective to use members!

  So as you can tell I am excited about this. But it is because it works. So remember when I talked about the two brothers? Well the youngest one (he just turned 18) is getting baptized in 2 weeks! It was really cool because we committed him to be baptized a few weeks ago, and he basically told us that he would if he got an answer. But we have had some really good lessons about faith and recognizing an answer through the spirit. Yesterday he came to church and felt the spirit really strong, and then we had a lesson about baptism. Because of members bearing their testimonies and sharing their conversion stories, he realized he really has gotten an answer. And he is committed to be baptized on April 10th! I am really excited. We have a couple of other people getting close right now too, so we will see what happens!

Besides those things, this week we got to watch the general young women broadcast, which got me really excited for general conference! So excited! On your mission, watching it is like the best thing ever. Like going to Disneyland or something. It is also a really powerful missionary tool- people can actually come and hear the prophet of the Lord speak. How cool is that?

Oh, also we are going to be moving soon! Right now we live with our Branch President and his wife, but we are going to be moving in with a recent convert. She is amazing! I am excited. We had dinner at her house on Thursday, which happened to be Sister Webb's year mark on her mission. It was really funny because that morning before we left our house, I told Sister Chandler (Branch President's wife) that it was her year mark and we should celebrate at dinner (sister Chandler always comes to dinner with us there). Sister Chandler, being the professional homemaker and cook she is, decided she would make Sis. Webb a dessert. Of course she ended up making not only a lemon cake from scratch, but also the most amazing lemon bars I have ever tasted. Then two days ago we get home and she has this huge chocolate cake there, "just because she has felt like chocolate lately." I swear, I am going to gain 5,000 pounds here. We were joking that because she is teaching us all kinds of sewing and cooking tips, all the sisters need to come serve in Mound City. We call her house "The M Chandler Refining School for Future Relief Society Presidents of America." She gets the biggest kick out of it.

Anyway, that was my week! Well really like 4 days because I emailed on Wednesday last week. Missionary work is the best!  

-Sister Hafen