Transfer Week

This week was really awesome! So there was a HUGE snow storm here and we are in the mountains so it was really bad. Monday night we weren't allowed to go out and we had to stay home. Wednesday we had to drive to Johnson City TN. for our mission conference with D Todd Christofferson. The weather was so bad!! I got permission for the elders to drive my car there because I HATE driving in the snow. Well we had another car of missionaries behind us and we pulled into the church parking lot and there was a little bit of a hill and the ice was super bad and we lost traction and slid into the other car of missionaries. The back of our car just has some damage but no one was hurt. I was so glad I wasn't driving! The mission conference was so good!! Elder Christofferson is so awesome! it was cool to see him in more of a comfortable setting. He also did a fireside for anyone to come to later that night. It was really awesome to be taught by one of the apostles. Ruth is doing so good :) We taught Word of wisdom a few days ago and we knew she drank coffee so we taught it and she said she would stop and when we went back she had a note on the coffee maker that said "YOU DONT NEED ME!" haha she hasn't drank coffee since Wednesday :) And she came to church yesterday!! :) she fits in so well. We needed someone to pick her up so we prayed and felt that this new family the Mclains should fellowship her and they are Recent converts that just moved from Mississippi and they are like best friends now! The Mclains invited us and Ruth over for lunch after church and it was so fun! Ruth loves them :) This ward struggles, but they are all great people! So last week I told you about Juanita.. a couple days ago she texted us and said that LDS just wasn't for her and we were so sad!! but we decided to go and talk to her and to see what happened and so we went on Saturday and she let us in and she just said that she got scared and that she doesn't feel like she fits in in any church. We got talking to her and she had a lot of questions and they were mostly all about the plan of salvation which was what we wanted to teach. She mentioned that she had a cousin who killed himself and everyone told her that he was in hell. Well her cousins wife decided to have a medium person come and she told the wife that he was in a spiritual place and that he was learning and progressing. As we began to teach we explained the spirit world and she just started to cry. She knew that what we were telling her was true, it was such an awesome lesson. George is doing great! He is going to do baptisms with the Lusks on March 28 :) we are so happy for him! He is going to come to SLC temple in a year and he wants us to be there! He is so awesome! So Sister Nelson leaves on Wednesday :( im seriously so sad!! I love her so much, she is by far my favorite companion so far. Im glad I only have to wait a couple months before I see her again :) I will be getting a new comp. President told me that she has only been out 6 months so that will be really weird. We are running out of sisters and there are not enough to train and be in leadership. I might have to train and be an STL my last transfer. Im so grateful for this time I have to be a missionary. I have learned so many things. One thing I have been thinking a lot about lately is how much our Heavenly Father loves us. He is literally our father in heaven and he wants the best for each of his children. He wants us to talk with him thru prayer and ask for his help. He is always there when we need him. We need to turn to him all the time, not just when we need something. im so grateful for my Heavenly Father and all that he helps me with. I hope you all have a good week! Love Sister Leifson :)

My District Valentines Day flowers.

Loving my Mission

This week has been really great :) Monday i went to Marion for exchanges and guess who i was with... Lily Gill... she was in our ward when we lived by the Martins! crazy huh? i knew she was here but i didnt realize she was in my zone. It was really fun to go with her :) Tuesday night we had to stay the night with the Asheville sisters because we had a stake correlation meeting with the stake president and the mission president, and we had a zone meeting on wednesday so we just stayed there to save miles. Our zone meeting was so awesome! Funny story for the week... These people in our ward have like 50 pets that live inside their house, one of them is a full grown chicken that just walks around the house... Well we went to visit them and we were just standing there and the chicken flew up and landed right on my shoulder and just sat there! hahhaa i thought i was going to die! it was so gross!! So Ruth is doing good. We taught her 3 times this past week. She is really receptive. She will be baptized the first part of march! Kris came to church again yesterday. We are hoping to have him baptized in march as well :) we had a really cool experience this week with someone we tracted into. her name is juanita. We knocked on her door and she told us that her husband was a member so she let us in, but he hadnt been practicing for a long time so she didnt really know anything about mormons. We got to know her a little bit and she shared a story with us about her having some complications during child birth and that she had a very sacred experience on the other side of the veil. She talked about how she saw christ and he had a lamb by his feet and he was just really bright and glorious. she got really emotional and the spirit was really strong. We taught the restoration and when we got to joseph smiths first vision we had her read it out of the pamphlet and she couldnt even finish it because she was crying so hard. She just knew that what he saw really happened because of the experience she had. It was so awesome. Before we left she asked us a question that she had been wondering about for a long time and we were able to answer her question using the BOM and she was just crying so hard. She really felt the power of the BOM. We committed her to be baptized and she said yes, we arent sure where her husbands records are so we are trying to find them. Such a neat experience for us! George is doing great! he took us out for ice cream a couple night ago :) also on valentines day we were just doing our studies and someone knocked on the door and it was a florist and he had 2 bouquets of flowers and they were from George!!! :) he is so good to us! we love him :)on Wednesday D. Todd Christofferson is coming to our mission for a mission conference :) we are so excited!! It will be really awesome :) well i hope you all have a good week! 

Love Sister Leifson :) 

I love serving the Lord.

This week was really awesome :) We got to go to knoxville for a meeting, it was thursday morning but we had to leave wednesday night because we are so far away.. it was a leadership meeting and the mission department form salt lake came and talked to us. it was such a good meeting! they only come once every three years so i was glad i got to be there for it! So george has a son named Dylan that is 15, but he wrestles and plays football so he is like super busy and we hadnt got to meet him yet, but george took us to dinner on saturday and brought Dylan :) we were so excited to meet him! We gave him a Book of Mormon and he said we could teach him again! We were so excited! Also George got the Priesthood yesterday :) he was really excited for that! A family in the ward brought a non member named Chris to church with them yesterday so we met him, and the family invited us to have lunch with them and chris after church so we went and we got to teach him the Restoration and he loved it! He is going to come to church with them next week as well. he has tattoos and he said that this is the first church he has been to that didnt judge him for them. He hasnt been to church in about 6 years! He is really awesome! A couple days ago we got a media referral and it was far away so it took us a couple days to contact her, but her name is Ruth and she is in her 30's. When we went to the door we asked if she requested missionaries to come over and she said "Yes i have cousins that are mormons and i would go to church with them, but i wasnt ready to convert then, but im ready to convert now!" oh my i almost died! haha so we went in and taught her the restoration which she already knew everything about and she already had a BOM and stuff so we committed her to be baptized on February 28 :) We are super excited for her!! The lord is really blessing us in this area :) i love it here so much!! Im sad i only have a couple more weeks with Sister Nelson... i love her so much! She is so awesome :) I hope you all have a good week! and a Happy Valentines Day :) 

Love Sister Leifson :) 

I love My Mission

Hello everyone! 

George got baptized this week!! :) His baptism was on Saturday and it went so great! He had Brother Lusk baptize him and that was a really neat experience for both of them! After he got baptized he just kept saying "it feels so nice to be apart of this ward family" :) Sunday he was confirmed and interviewed to receive the priesthood :) Im so proud of him and his decision to be baptized! George was tracted into in December and he said he couldnt talk right then because his wife was in the hospital. They went back the next week and he wasnt there. They contacted him again the first week of january and he said the reason he wasnt there was because he was at his wifes funeral. She passed away from complications during heart surgery. She was only 40. They have a 15 yr old son. George wanted to learn so Sister Nelson and her last companion taught the first 2 lessons then i got here and we finished teaching him :) he is such a miracle! He was definitely prepared. It has been such a neat experience for us to teach him. Also this week i got to go on exchanges with the Franklin sisters. They have a branch that is really struggling but they have a lot of Hispanic members so they have a goal to start a Spanish branch because one of the sisters there right now is a spanish speaking sister :) While we were on exchanges we got to teach this part member family that is hispanic and they were so awesome. the wife has a baptism date for march :) also we went tracting while i was there and we found a hyspanic family for them to start teaching! It was a mom, dad, and two kids! i was so happy that we found them!  On Friday we went to contact this potential named Brandi and we didnt think she had much potential but we kept trying. We went and she let us in and we started teaching and talking about gods love for each of us.. She started to cry and shared some trials she has been going thru lately. We continued to teach the restoration and she cried thru the whole lesson. As we shared the first vision she just cried and we asked her what she was feeling and she said that it was something she has never felt before and that she felt really good and peaceful. We were able to explain to her that it was the Holy Ghost testifying to her that what we were saying was true. it was probably one of the most spiritual lessons of my mission. We were all in tears. it was so awesome!! We committed her to be baptized and she said yes :) I love doing the lords work and being able to teach people about the restored gospel. Last miracle of the week... We have been teaching a guy named Joe. He is in his 20's. He is atheist and doesn't have much belief in Jesus Christ. He is really hard to teach because he questions everything we say. We had 2 really good lessons with him at the church with a member this week and he really seems to be understanding more. We have been inviting him to church but he never came. But yesterday he came to church!! :) and he stayed the whole time. He really enjoyed it. i am so grateful to be serving here in Waynesville. I love it here so much! i love my mission and i love the people i have been able to serve :) 

Have a good week!! 

Love Sister Leifson :)