Oct 27, 2014

Dear Family,

It was a great week, we did lots of tracting to find people because that's all about we can do here. But its fun, probably one of the highlights of the week is when we go out and tract, and we don't do it for hours on end.. well sometimes but mostly just here and there a little. another highlight of the week was our skills and interviews this Friday followed up by district conference Saturday night and Sunday morning, we fortunately got to be around our mission president adn his wife for three days, that's not normal for us!! especially since we are way out in the boondocks! but it happened and it was great, boy is that man and his wife inspired from God! There are so many changes being made in our work, or in the process of being made  its really going to turn the work around and help us out. The big focus is on less active work, which i am so excited for!! we are working right now with a young man who has gone less active and yesterday we committed him to come to church and allow us to come over every week to help him prepare to pass the sacrament again, he said yes he would like that, and it was just as exciting if someone had agreed to be baptized,honestly in some ways even better!!

District conference was incredible!! to hear the testimony's of so many people, was my favorite part i love testimony's because you can see where people match in similarities and where people differ and how God makes up those differences, how leads them and guides them. there were a couple quotes that i loved that i want to share.

"Introductions break barriers" -- reach out to those that we do not know that come into our chapel, help them feel at home

"Words touch the mind , but feelings touch the heart"-- again let the investigators feel our love for them, and if you dont have love for them be a conduit for heavenly father so they can feel his love for them (however im sure many people are very friendly with most investigators) let them feel at home 

"the lord will provide a way to help those that cant help themselves" -- this was one of my answers to how i can help investigators make commitments 

"The spirit is alive"-- The spirit is not and IT he is a He because he truly is alive i have never felt so guarded of this before, but knowing who he is, he deserves the respect of being referred to as alive, im sure that wasn't the purpose of why they said that but that is how it stuck out to me.

anyways as you can see it was a good week end! PLUS i got to see everyone from belleville, oh yeah!! that was so awesome, i think i gave about 100 people hugs in about and hour if you were to combine the amount of time we lingered after both conferences. record time? probably not.. i might be able to beat it next time. lots of good people to converse with. 

This week will be interesting we have a few appointments set up with some potentials and visiting teaching with some less actives so we got to get them on the keep commitments train!! Congratulations Michelle and Nate on the new arrival, im sure hes just as precious as the other two! i cant wait to meet him!! 

Happy Early Birthday Spencer!! considering i cant say it on the day of.. 

I love you all!!

Love Sister Hadley

the one is a picture of the sister in my district that slept over so they wouldn't have to travel very far, they are the sister that are actually in belleville now

and the other was a test shot to see if i wanted us to stand there

 

Oct 20, 2014

Dear Family,

My week was great, there were a few times this week that I felt way to passionate about the gospel... if thats even possible... but each time surprised me and almost brought me to tears why did i not know these things before? And how grateful I am to know them now. For example Saturday we visited some members in the branch that have been in the church for almost a year now, it is a mother and her son. the mother said she had been having some terrible pains and blood in her urine, our first reactions were or better the first words out of my mouth were why haven't you gone to the hospital? And have you received a priesthood blessing? Both very important resources to rely on when your body starts to malfunction. There were reasons as to why she didn’t go to the hospital but it seemed as if she didn’t know she could call on a someone to give her a blessing, and if so she wasn't a hundred percent comfortable or sure of how to do it. so we put on our paper, that goes into the priesthood meeting every Sunday morning, please talk to sister so and so today and offer a priesthood blessing due to physical illness... no one had told us if that was done or not. Then yesterday we called this sister to see if she would go teaching and it was about 8 at night and her son informed us that his mom wasn't feeling well to go out and teach because she was having very bad pains in her side, she couldn’t get off the couch, and through some communication difficulties we were eventually given permission to arrange someone to give her a blessing. so we called a priesthood holder, and inside me I felt like he just didn't understand the urgency of the request I could feel this odd feeling building up inside me one that was supportive and it was a familiar feeling that I had felt before after teaching about Christ so I knew it was a good odd feeling but it made me feel like I was coming off crazy or something and so I even questioned myself, am I acting to rash? To quick? To dramatic? but I pushed it further with the priesthood holder and cut right through his reasons as to why she could wait or why she hasn’t needed to receive one yet, and through that persistence he and another priesthood holder went over as soon as they could and gave her a blessing immediately after he called and said she will be going to the hospital tomorrow, and thank you for letting us know about her, she needed that blessing. The thought in my head was she wouldn’t have gone to the hospital if she hadn’t received a blessing and she wouldn't have received a blessing if you hadn't persisted and you wouldn’t have persisted if you hadn’t known the power of the priesthood. And how grateful I am to know of that power, that it is made available to us and many other resources of truth given to us by our father in heaven. 

The Priesthood IS real!

this week did lots of finding and we foudn a lot of people that are interested. the people that we are teaching right now are doing quite well, they just need to decide for themselves if what we share is true, so that they can move forward, but they wont pray.. SO.. we will continue to invite them to pray and explain why they would need to and do all we can to help them. BUT if soon they arent willing to do much we may have to start focusin on some other people as hard as it would be .

we have district conference this coming saturday and sunday which is the equivalant to your stake conference, and i am excited! for multiple reasons one of them being i will get to see people from belleville. 

we also this wednesday hvae skills and interviews, so in other words, interview with the mission president!

well i love you all and enjoyed hearing about all the accomplishments of everyone. i am very sad that i will not get to come home and see bouncer, can you send me a picture of him mom before he passes? 

Love Yous!

Sister Hadley
 

Oct 14, 2014

Dear Family,

We had thanksgiving yesterday it was an interesting dinner at a recent convert/part member home but we were very grateful for their love and friendship. we forgot to get a picture with them so we will have to send one another time. The night before we also had a thanksgiving dinner with another member of the church her husband, her son and his wife and his son and daughter and ex-wife, also an interesting meal, but once again we were grateful to them for allowing us to be a part of their holiday celebration. yesterday for thanksgiving we did lots of finding, and it was super fun. it wasn't much different than what we did last year, some street contacting and door knocking but maybe it was just the year difference the time i've had to grow accustomed to those activities, i actually enjoyed it! 

Saturday we also had a really great day where a member was with us almost every hour of the day taking pictures of what we were doing on putting them on the internet (due to The Book of Mormon play being shown in toronto) so we did normal activites but had members with us the whole day to show the world what we do!

we sang in sacrament meeting for thanksgiving and everyone enjoyed it, including myself i love to sing! 

Citlali congratulations!! i am so excited for you, you will absolutely love it out there, but you probably already know that, enjoy the next year and a half with the people of Chicago!!! 

here are some pictures form the week, oh yeah we went fishing last monday it was fun, i caught two fish a pike and a smaller fish, sister christenson caught a pike.

ps rob and vivian the ones who helped me with my stomach issues in belleville came and took us out to luinch it was anice surprise, and we made squash soup this week mine in on the left. 

Oct 6, 2014

Dear Family,

This week was incredible we got into the homes of many including investigators, new people to teach, and the homes of those who have chosen to forsake their covenants with God. My heart yearns for these people so very much, often times i feel myself reflecting on the words of the Book of Mormon prophets who have much grief for their brethren because their hearts are hard or they have forgotten their God for a time or that they just have not opened their eyes to truth. Conference was incredible it helped me see alot of what i need to do to help these people and after i have done all that i can thats when i should truly be sad becuase i can do so much more. And so after this conference i have made a promise with myself and to God to work as hard as i possibly can, harder than i am at this moment to be a mouth piece for the lord, to get out of the way, to let him use me as much as is possible for the next 6 months so they can truly come to know their Heavenly Father and his son our Savior Jesus Christ. Almost every single person testified either about our Father in Heaven or Jesus Christ or both of them, i took note of every one of them and if they didn't testify of them they testified of our prophet who is Gods mouthpiece for the world today so in that round about way testifying that god does exist and that he lives. I want each and every person to know this i cant believe the amount of people that do not, it seems so hard to believe but there are so many people who are unaware or if they are choose to walk another way, we cant let them do that!! i am going to try even harder i promise! .. Other than an insane love for the work being intensified in my heart the work continues to move on and we definitely have our work cut out for us.

I love all of you so incredibly much, here are a few pictures from the week.

Love Sister HAdley

ps i am staying in napanee with sister christenson!!