Nov.18,2012

Dearest Family!!

Hello All!!! Happy Thanksgiving!!!!! Wow! I can't believe it's that
time of year already, I LOVE this time of the year so much! Especially
as a missionary, there is no better time to be a missionary cause
around this time of the year everybody seems to be a little kinder and
more concerned about the people around them. Even if 2 strange girls
come knocking on their door at 8:00 when they are trying to get kids
in bed and they have never met us before, even if it is freezing cold
and they have to open the door, they all seem a little bit kinder!
It's so nice!! :) For the most part, the weather has been beautiful!!!
The last few days I haven't even had to wear my coat! Hooray!! My
Australian companion on the other hand thinks that she will freeze to
death the moment that she steps out the door, so she bundles up and
puts on layer after layer!!! Ha ha, it's great! I'm sure that we make
quite the sight: A short, little, blonde girl with a light jacket and
a very TALL, red head with an Eskimo coat, boots, mittens, scarf and
everything else you can think of!! Ha ha! We have so much to be
thankful for!!!! :) I just am excited to see what she'll do when it
REALLY starts to get cold! ;)

Any ways, we've had a great week! We had specialized training this
week (2 days of it!) and all of the sisters went on exchanges for 2
days in between training meetings. I love these meetings because I
feel like they are always EXACTLY what I need to hear! As we were in
the training meeting, we had one of the stake presidents come and
instruct us. It was SO good!!! He said a lot of really good things,
mostly he talked about how to help members be more involved with
missionary work by helping them to feel the spirit and TEACHING them
HOW to DO missionary work! I had never thought of that before! I guess
that being a missionary, you just kind of assume that everybody (well,
all of the members any ways) just know what they need to do or say to
share the gospel. Well, a lot of these families are scared because
they don't know how to do it and they don't want to lose any friends.
So, he told us to facilitate the spirit in their home, so they can
really feel it by teaching and testifying of a simple doctrine, then
invite them to be a part of missionary work by inviting someone to
hear the missionary lessons by a specific date and then practicing
with them! WOW!!! What a great idea, right?? As missionaries we
practice all of the time, what a great idea! :) Any ways, so with that
in mind we went out to work. Our first member lesson was with a member
of the Bishopric. We had it all planned out and ready and were SO
excited, but with all of our planning we neglected to leave time for
US to practice.. . . . Well, it didn't go as swell as we wanted it to.
I think he felt a little bit guilty cause he tried to come up with all
sorts of excuses about how they were working with their friends.
HMMMM, Thank goodness for his sweet wife!! :) She piped up and
suggested that they invite friends over in a few weeks to hear a
Christmas message that we share! We quickly agreed! Ha ha, we shared
our testimonies of missionary work, promised them that they would be
blessed and that the Lord would bless them and then had to run. I'm
hoping that they really do follow through on the Christmas message!!
Needless to say, we are still working on that one! We'll get it, but
it is gonna take a little bit more time and practice!

Funny story!!! So, for exchanges this last week, the sisters called us
and they told me I would be leaving. I was just a little bummed cause
I had JUST BARELY unpacked all of my suitcases and got every thing
organized, but they they told me I would be going to. . . .. HILL
STREET!!!! Ha ha!!! YAY!!!!! I was SO excited!!!! :) I teased them all
day that I had been on exchanges for the last week and now they were
just sending me home! ;) It was so good!!! I was there with S Hoopes,
and it was (again) exactly what I needed! The first day after
specialized training, we taught Van. S Hoopes had never met him before
and I told him I was being transferred, the look on his face was
priceless!!! It's been a while since we had been able to see Van, and
we went there straight after our meeting so we had like 3 minutes to
plan. . .. Heavenly Father blessed us SO much! In our training
meeting we also spent a lot of time talking about the power of the
Book of Mormon. So, we put that to use! We read a little with him,
then talked about prayer. It was so amazing! It was one of those times
when you can feel the spirit so strongly and you feel like it's not
you talking. .. Yeah!! I was saying all sorts of things and promising
blessings that I knew I couldn't provide, I KNEW that the spirit was
guiding that lesson! The last few days I have really studied the
Atonement and it amazes me how EVERYTHING relates to the Atonement. My
insight in Van's lesson was that, as we pray we are able to
communicate with God, through that communication he sends his spirit
to help us recognize the answers and as we recognize those answers we
are able to make changes in our lives to draw even closer to our
Loving Heavenly Father. THAT"S THE ATONEMENT!!! That's what it is all
about!! It's all about helping us to change, to be better people, to
come closer to God and feel more of his spirit and his love for us and
to become the Children that He sees in us! It's made me evaluate my
prayers, my studies and everything that I do. .. 'Is this going to
invite the spirit and help me to access grace??" If so, then I keep it
up, if not that's a good indication of an area that I can improve! :)
The next day we were busy all day and had an amazing, crazy, spirit
filled day! I am SO thankful for the time we were able to be together.
I LOVE S Hoopes, so much!!! I really appreciate her love of the
gospel, her desire to share it and her testimony that drives her to
keep going! She's such a great example!

Wow!! This letter is getting long, I better get going soon, but I have
one more story that I waned to share! We are teaching Han's mom, May.
She is super, super sweet and really loves meeting with us, but she is
also very busy and obviously doesn't recognize (or associate) the
feelings of having us around with feeling the spirit. We went to see
her this week and decided to apply the things we learned at
specialized training. We came up with a lesson plan that we felt met
her needs and covered what she needed to know, feel and do, we
practiced it and felt good. Then as we were sitting there in the
lesson we were running out of time. We knew we didn't have enough time
to do EVERYTHING, so we went another route. We were still able to do
the: know, feel, do pattern and it actually turned out much better
than we even planned!! We taught her about prayer, the importance of
it, why we do it and even How to pray! (Thank you President Devree's!)
At the end we asked her if she would say the closing prayer. She was
very nervous and tried to get Han to say it, but even he felt it and
KNEW that she needed to pray. She finally did pray!!!! Han had to go
first and give her an example and I think her prayer was almost
exactly the same thing he said, but it didn't matter! For the first
time in years and years, May took the invitation and spoke out loud to
her Heavenly Father! The feeling in the room was absolutely
incredible!!! Now we know that she can do it, and hopefully she will
keep her promise and pray throughout the week this week!!

Well family! I guess I had better get going! I still don't have a
mailing address. . . you can send anything to the Hill St address and
they'll get it to me. Next week for sure I will have one though!!!!
(Hopefully!!) All we are waiting on now is for the Post office to
bring us the key! I will let you know as soon as I have a real
address! :) It will be nice to be able to get mail for real, again! ;)
I love you all so much!!! Thank you for being who you are, thanks for
choosing the right, thanks for being such great examples in all that
you do and for living the gospel!!! :) The Gospel life is TRULY the
GOOD life!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! Love you all the BEST!

Love,

Sister Bishop