Sister Clark and Sister Lundburg love these Sisters.. NO Email this week I talked to My Mom on Mothers Day.

It was a great week.:)

This week has been so great! so to start off my week i went on exchanges in Franklin with a new missionary Hermana Challman. She is a spanish speaking sister and she is so great i just love her :) On thursday we got a referral from a member in our ward for a lady named Evelyn so we got to go teach her and she was really awesome! on Friday we were doing some finding and we got 2 solid people that we were able to teach and get a return appointment with :) Friday night i left to go on a second exchange for the week in Asheville with sister gifford :) she is a great sister as well and we had so much fun! While i was gone to asheville they found another new investigator named anthony! also yesterday at church our RS president brought a friend with her and she stayed for the whole block and then we got to teach her the restoration after church! her name is Rhonda and she is really awesome as well. We have been having a really hard time finding new investigators but this week was just a miracle and we were able to find lots of new people to teach!! :) this week we were also able to get two of our investigators with a baptism date! Craigs date is May 30 and Walkers date is May 17 :) i really want to be here for walkers! he is 11 and he is such a cute kid! So George got his patriarchal blessing on Saturday! he was so happy and he said it was a very spiritual experience for him. We got a new bishopric yesterday! our bishop was leaving for a sabbatical for a year so they released him and we got a new bishopric :) So the best news of the week is about Nerio the BYU guy we met at walmart! So he came to church last week and then on tuesday the sisters were going to try and see him because a spanish sister was in our area but he was too busy that day so he asked us to come over last night for dinner :) so we went and his sister and niece and daughter were there that he brought to church and while the sister was cooking we got to talk to him and we asked about his daughter in Provo going to byu and we asked if she would ever get baptized while she was out there and he said "oh she already got baptized into the mormon church! haha he also said that his ex wife was a member as well so he knows a little bit about Mormons. So we had dinner and we got to teach him the restoration after and he agreed to be baptized!! :) :) he said he wanted to pray about a date to get baptized so i hope its before i leave! i told him that when i go home i want to find his daughter in Provo and he said that if he gets baptized after i leave that he would pay for me and his daughter to fly here together to see him get baptized :) he is such a great guy! he owns a really successful construction business so when he came to church lots of people knew him because of his business. Everyone had great things to say about him! I love being a missionary so much! im really sad that its coming to an end so quickly, but i have loved it so much! i hope you all have a great week :) Love Sister Leifson :)

1 More Month :(

This week was so busy! So on Tuesday we had our Missionary leadership meeting in knoxville! its for the Zone leaders and the sister training leaders so there was 20 of us there. We left at 9 and got there for the meeting at 12. We had an all day meeting till 6 then we went to Presidents house and sister griffin made us dinner :) We got home about 11 so that was a really long day! Our other companion isnt in leadership so we had to take her to Asheville to stay with the sisters there over night till wednesday. So friday was our zone meeting so we didnt have much time to prepare, but it went really good! We trained with the zone leaders about working with members. after zone meeting on Friday, George met us in Asheville and he took us to a Japanese steak house where they cook your food in front of you :) its our favorite place to go and anytime we are in asheville george takes us there haha so this time the guy cooking our food recognized us and knew what church we were from and he was like hey i went to that church when i lived over in Knoxville. I went to the West Hills building! (thats where i served for 6 months!!) this was a few years ago so i wouldnt have been there, but he said that he was about to get baptized and mom wouldnt let him. So i said would she let you get baptized now? and he thought about it for a minute and he was like well im old enough now she doesnt really have a say anymore! so we gave him the address to the church in asheville and the sisters number and he said he would try to go this week! he was really awesome! So we came back from dinner and our Ward mission leader set up a ward movie night to watch meet the mormons so we went to that! A recent convert family brought a friend named jade she is 15 so we talked to her and she said that she doesnt have a church she goes to or anything so we took her on a tour of the church and she came to church yesterday and brought another friend with her!!! We were so happy to see them! Also another one of our Investigators Walker came to church :) So for the miracle of the week.... On Monday we were at Walmart and we were checking out and i see this hyspanic guy with a BYU shirt on.. which never happens out here haha so when he looked over i waved to him to get his attention and he yells across the store "you look pretty!" haha that was super awkward so i was like are you a BYU fan? and he told us that his daughter has been going to BYU for 2 years. He said its a mormon school and i was like ya were mormons and he was like where is your church so we told him and invited him to come. We exchanged info and we didnt think anything would really happen. Well Sunday morning were greeting people at church he came walking in with his daughter, niece and sister!! i thought i was going to die!! haha i was so happy to see him there!! the ward really welcomed them and everyone loved him! His name is Nerio. He says he is catholic, but he wants to come to church next week too :) That was the high light of my week! :) One more cool thing that happened was we met a lady named Ginger while tracting a few weeks ago and she said we could maybe come back sometime. Well i was thinking alot about her because i felt like i knew her, or had met her before and i really wanted to teach her. So we went back on Saturday and she let us in and told us that she had met with boy missionaries about 10 years ago and that she really liked what they taught. she agreed to let us start teaching her and her family again :) The work is really going great out here! i love this area so much! This is definitely the Lords work and its so amazing to be an instrument in his hands :) I hope you all have a great week! Love Sister Leifson :)

I love my Mission..

I cant believe another week is already past! This week was transfer week so it was a little crazy! On Wednesday we picked up our new companion. her name is sister behunin and she is from bountiful. She has been out for 9 months.. She will just be with us this transfer! It was fun to get to go to Knoxville for the transfer meeting :) i love Knoxville! Things this week have been going really good. So Arlene is doing great! Bishop Adler told us that he has known her for 8 years and she was never interested in talking the lessons or anything, but she finally let us start teaching her a couple weeks ago. This week we taught her about the Word of Wisdom and she had mentioned that she drinks tea (along with everyone else in the south) and she drinks coffee. Well we taught her about it and she accepted it as a commandment from God and told us that she would stop this week :) she is so awesome! So the oldest golden boy is Phillip and he is almost 12. He amazes us everytime we teach because of how much he knows about the gospel. He was not raised coming to church, he just recently these past 2 months has came to church. In the middle of our lesson we asked him if he knew what Redeemer meant and he told us a perfect answer and he knew the definition of resurrection and pre earth life and so many other things that we havent taught him yet and he for sure isnt getting taught it at home. He was sitting in on our lesson with Arlene and he told us the whole story of Adam and Eve. We asked him who taught him that and he said well no one but im sure i was taught it before i came here like in heaven with God and Jesus... i almost died! i could not believe he knew so much..Bishop Adler brought him to a session of General Conference at the church and he watched the whole time. While we were at that lesson with Arlene he quoted a talk from the session he watched!! He will probably be the first one to get baptized and it will hopefully be this transfer! We love teaching them so much! Exciting news... George went to the temple this past weekend to do baptisms!! :) He loved it so much :) The same couple that fellowshipped him and baptized him took him to the temple so Brother Lusk got to baptize him in the temple as well :) Sister Beckstead had some family names so she gave them to George to do. He is so great! He came on a team up with us yesterday to teach some investigators and he loved it! He goes home teaching with the ward mission leader every other thursday. Also yesterday he got interviewed to get his patriarchal blessing! :) he is doing so great!! im so grateful for the opportunity to help others come unto christ! its so rewarding! my mission has definitely been the hardest thing i have ever done, but it has taught me so much! i can truly say that i am converted to this gospel. I thought before my mission that i knew these things that i am teaching, but now i can say that i really believe them! I hope you all have a good week!! Love Sister Leifson

Happy Easter

This week was pretty good, the weeks are going by so fast its crazy! i cant believe i just had my last conference on my mission, and i cant believe its already April! Conference was a highlight for this week, i really enjoyed all the talks this year. George came to the church and watched all the sessions with us :) Conference is such a good reminder of the things we should be doing and gives us motivation to start again and move forward. I loved President Eyrings talk about Fasting and donating fast offerings. Fasting is really hard for me, but it was a good reminder of the blessings that come when we keep Gods commandments. Also i loved Elder Nelsons talk about making the Sabbath a delight. Lots of people in the world are forgetting about the Sabbath day and it becomes a day of running errands. There are great blessings when we keep the Sabbath day holy. We have 6 other days to do all of our errands and things like that, Heavenly Father deserves at least one day. So this week is transfers and we are getting a 3rd companion so we will be in a trio for a couple weeks.. This sister isnt going to be in leadership with us, but we are just kind of babysitting for a couple week. But things here are going great! The work is moving forward and great things are happening here! So george spoils us way more than he should... last Monday he took us to this nail salon and paid $60 for me and sister Beckstead to get manicures! hahah he is the best!! he said it was our Easter present! He is doing great and he is excited to do baptisms this weekend! im so grateful for this week that we were able to share our knowledge of Jesus Christ with others. And to especially focus on the fact that he lives! Here in the south everyone believes in Christ but they all focus on the cross and the fact that he died for them, so its hard for people when they come to our church building and they see that we dont have any crosses up, just pictures of the living Christ. We are so blessed to have the knowledge that we do! and to have a living prophet on the earth again! I hope you all have a great week! Love Sister Leifson :)

Happy Easter and Conference

I had a really good week this week. it was super busy!! Tuesday i went on an exchange in Franklin with Hermana Norman. She is a spanish speaking sister so like all our lessons were in spanish.. that was rough for me haha but it was really neat to listen to her teach in spanish. It really made me miss the philippines and speaking a language, but im also grateful to be able to speak english! Friday we also had another exchange with the sisters in Asheville. We drove to asheville and did a power up in their area for a couple hours then me and sister lundberg came back to Waynesville and george took us out to dinner :) On Saturday we had a lesson with some investigators Lily and Waver, and george came to the lesson with us! it was so fun to have him come and help us teach our investigators :) George is doing so good! Our ward mission leader took him out with him to do some home teaching and he loved it! He called us after and was just on cloud 9 he was so happy :) he said that he felt like a missionary for once and that it was really uplifting to visit others and help them want to come back to church! He got his interview this week and he got his temple recommend to do baptisms :) he is going on April 11 with the ward :) We are so happy for him! This week we are going to Marion for exchanges so that should be fun! On Easter morning a family is taking us up on Blue ridge parkway at 4:00am to watch the sunrise! blue ridge parkway is one of the most photographed spots in the United States so im super excited to go there! im so excited for General Conference!! :) The general womens meeting really focused on the importance of family. I have really seen that on my mission. You can tell a big difference between the families that have Jesus Christ at the center and those that don't. i have been able to set alot of goals for how to have a Christ centered home and to have an environment where my family can learn and live the gospel. I Love my family so much. Im so grateful for the Book of Mormon and the spirit that comes when we read from it daily. im so grateful to be here on a mission :) i hope you all have a good week! Love Sister Leifson :)

best news ever !!! NO more driving... now my companion has to :):)

This week has been really good! So best news of the week... Im not the driver anymore!!! :) i have been driving for 6 transfers in a row! thats 36 weeks.. i am so sick of driving. So the mission has a rule that missionaries arent allowed to drive their last transfer so i asked president if Sister beckstead could start driving 2 weeks early and he said yes :) I have gotten alot of practice tho so im a really good driver now :) So the leadership in our ward is really weird right now, like our bishop is going on this sabbatical for a year and he has only been the bishop for 6 months so he is getting released and we are getting a new bishop. Also we got a new ward mission leader!! :) our old one just wasnt really into the whole missionary thing. We would come to church on sunday to meet with him and he would be asleep on the couch.. it was rough, but the one we have now was the bishop 6 months ago and he is the most missionary minded person in the ward :) we are super excited to have him!! So the Golden boys are doing great! just pray that their mom lets them get baptized. Also their grandma Arlene is doing great! she is making so much progress :) We had zone meeting last week and it was really good. We had to role play teaching president on what he just taught us in front of the whole zone haha it was kinds scary but it went good :) We have 2 exchanges set up for this week so we should be really busy! Yesterday me and sister beckstead spoke in church and it went really good. Guess what i spoke on... the Book of Mormon :) im pretty sure that is something i learned from this awesome guy names Brother Dickerson :) haha but ya it went good! George is doing awesome as usual. He is doing home teaching with different men in the ward because he likes it so much.. he said he just wants to help people come back to church! we will see great things from him in the future :) Well thats about all for this week! hope you all have a good week :) Love Sister Leifson :)