March 10, 2014

Dear family,

Dad, I love that talk. It's called "His Grace is Sufficient" I cannot tell you how many times I have been encouraged to read that talk.

So I read it and honestly I didn't understand it. It wasn't until I understood the Atonement that I could understand a little bit about Grace. Sometimes I just
get so confused. I love that talk. It has been presented in a lot of sacrament meetings that I have attended here.

Grace is something we asked about a lot on the doorstep. "Do you believe in Grace?" and of course we're like yeah man! So I understand

bits and pieces. I just need to study it more, but you summary helped. :)

This week has been really good. Nothing amazing really  happened. We just did a lot of tracting and I was like man...I am back in Le Mars!

I was able to see a little bit of progression with me as a missionary because usually I am scared out of my mind to go tracting but now it

doesn't scare me at all. I am not worried about what I have to say or anything I am just enjoying getting to know the people here and bearing testimony of

Christ. I was reflecting on how teaching is getting easier and easier and how slowly I am FINALLY getting  most of this mission thing down. Most. For sure
not all. But yeah.

So on Tuesday night I was laying in bed thinking. Just thinking about random questions I had about the gospel or about other things. Then I went to sleep and sure
enough in District Mtg that next morning everything I was thinking about was answered by the trainings that were giving. I was like oh my goodness gracious if I didn't know
there was a God this would be kind of creepy...:) I just love it when that happens. 

Oh another cool thing that happened this week was we taught an Atheist. Her name is Rose. She was really neat. SO HARD to teach her. After the lesson I felt horrible. Horrible

as in very sad for her. She said she was willing to pay for her own sins and that she doesn't need Christ as her "crutch".  She viewed religion as a comfort thing
that people use to deal with mortality. It made me SO sad. All I could do was testify of Christ and testify of how much my Savior means to me. Every time we did that
she was like "I'm glad you have found comfort in your religion." She wouldn't even let us pray. We asked her if she has ever prayed and she said I am just talking to myself

there is no need to pray. I am just thankful that I was raised in such way to have a foundation of knowing that I am daughter of a Heavenly Father. I was created by Him. My goal is
to return home to Him.  Although it was a hard lesson it strengthened my testimony that my religion is not a comfort thing that is my go to when I am having a hard time. It's
everything about me. It's who I am. She is in our area book now and I pray sisters who come after me will pray and know when the right time would be to go back to her

and she will come to know the Savior. I know she will. :) Eventually.

Ha, so it has been really nice here. Like in the 60's. So we went to Holmes Lake to go street contacting. Like the actual lake. It's really weird to go to a lake not surrounded by mountains.

Anyway and some other missionaries from a church called G.L.O.W. were there. They walked up to us and started preaching. They started to hand us a pamphlet and I was like

if we take your pamphlet will you take this book? They said yes and we gave them the BOM. It was cool though because we listened to them and we agreed with what  they had to say
as far as Christ and everything. They went a little of the deep end when they got to Adam and Eve I was like whoa where are you pulling this from? What Bible did you read?! But anyway

it just reminded me of the 11 Art of Faith. How we allow freedom of worship and such. I am just thankful we live somewhere where we can have that freedom to be whatever we want to
be. And that's okay. :)

So yeah. We've met a ton of interesting people this week. But yeah. We're just doing our thing.

Love ya'll and have a good week.

Love, Sister Curfew

Sister Sommers, Laura, Sister Curfew

Laura, Sister Curfew

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Sister Curfew and her District

Sister Lord and Sister Curfew

March 3, 2014

Dear Family,

 I'm glad you're going to prom it sounds pretty awesome. How did you get so tech savvy?

Wait, who are you going to prom with? You're wearing a white tux?? Don't get any food on it.

I still can't believe mom got you an Xbox. How is seminary? Where are you going on your band trip?

Well this week was great. It was FREEZING!! People here are so funny. They call us and go "So we are supposed to be
getting a really bad storm soon so please be careful tomorrow." So we plan for a cold day and plan where we can use our car
and where we should walk and we walk outside and there is no snow and it's 40 degrees. That has happened 4 times this week. I am convinced
it will not snow here it will just be BITTER cold.
But we ran out of miles this week on our car...so we walked everywhere. It was SO

FUN! :D We met a ton a people. Including this one lady who is an Athieist but is the sweetest thing ever and is a new investigator!

This will be one of the first times teaching someone who already doesn't have a base in God and Jesus Christ. It's kind of scary. But
thankfully the Spirit testifies of truth. :)  So we told the Relief Society President that we would need rides to travel into our area and rides

 to get back home at night. So we got to know a lot of ward members this week by riding in the car with them and we actually got a team up!

This is big news...usually we can't get sisters to go out with us. Sis Chaudry, who used to be a nun, took us to this nursing home to see this lady
who rarely gets any visits and is slowly losing it. She was so cool though. When she saw me she grabbed my hand and stared me down. She would

not let go of my hand the whole visit. She just kept looking at me like she knew something. It was so weird, but really cool at the same time.

Speaking of nuns we passed some on the street. We didn't get a chance to talk to them but we were like "Hey we're sisters too!" they just smiled and

waved at us. It was funny to me. I really wanted to ask them if their hat things were uncomfortable...because they look uncomfortable...anyway.

Another cool thing that happened this week was we were invited to be in charge of the YW activity on Wednesday. That was FUN! I miss being in YW's and it

made me ponder a lot on how being in YW prepared me for my mission and how the leaders that I worked with were the most valiant women ever and I got
super lucky to have them as examples. :) So we made a video going through our schedule and answering questing that they had given us. Then we did a roleplay

and everyone dressed up and some were missionaries and some were investigators and we just acted out the first discussion. It was really cool to watch them teach
and realize what we do on missions. The YW in this ward are hilarious. We had one relate the gospel to a broken leg. I was laughing to hard so I can't remember it all,but I was like you're going to the best missionary ever! The leaders talked to us afterwards and they were like we never realized how fun a mission could be and they really appreciated

that as missionaries we looked happy and were enjoying our time serving. :) Missions are so hard but they are so fun as well. :) I love it.

Alright so the best thing that happened this week was ZONE CONFERENCE!! Yay! Our theme was "Pray to Know."

Anyway zone Olympics was the heathen part of zone conference. The spiritual part was exactly what I needed. The Spirit is the ultimate motivator. I really learned how important it is to
pray sincerely. Or at least how to try to make my prayers sincere. So I am really working on talking to Heavenly Father like I would a friend. Sometimes I think I fear

Heavenly Father because I just don't want to disappoint Him in anyway so I would make my prayers really formal but we don't always need to do that. Sis Weston gave a training
how we can pray in our "style". Obviously we need to end in Christ name and begin addressing Heavenly Father. But the rest is up to us. We need to be ourselves even with Heavenly Father. He created us. He gave us different personalities. We need to be who we are especially to our Father in Heaven. I was like...is that allowed? Can I joke in a prayer? Changed my life. :) We taught a LA the other day and she talked about she had a dream once of her and Jesus walking down by a river and they were just talking and laughing.  She was like we don't need to be scared of them! I just thought it was cool. :) I love it when LA teach us. I learn too! We also talked A LOT on how we need to be Preach my Gospel missionaries. I have much to improve on and I look forward to be the best PMG missionary I can be for the rest of my life! :)

But yeah. We had a good week. :) It was nice to see and feel the help of the Lord in everything we did this week. Life is easier when the Lord is helping you out.

Well I love ya'll. I hope you're having a good week. Dad, Happy Birthday!! Sorry about your foot. Those treadmills man they're sneaky and they'll get you! I love you!

Love, Sister Curfew

February 24, 2014

Dear Family,

Yes I will be living in those apartments for a little while. You don't have to worry about them getting stolen because they go to the office and then the office calls and informs us

when they're here.
 Yes I can listen to Jericho Road. I've been getting spring fever too. I just want to go for a run! Not at 6:30 in the morning. :)

I'm glad you are praying for the missionaries in your stake. It helps so much when a ward is praying for you. More miracles happen every day when that happens.

It's funny to me that you have missionaries for your stake. There are two sets of missionaries in almost every ward here. Lincoln has a lot of work to be done. Evidently there
were missionaries in Lincoln that were like super disobedient before we got here. So sometimes I feel like I am on clean up crew. If that makes any sense.
But yeah. This week has been alright. Transfer officially happened and some of my favorite missionaries left which is bummer. Also the sisters that were living with us moved out

which is another bummer it was really nice to  have someone other than my companion to talk to every  night. Not that my companion is bad, it was just that it was nice to switch it

up a little bit.

Anyway. This week was really short. We met a lot of  new people this week. So that's good. The families in Holmes Lake just keep getting better and better! This ward just loves us.

It is a complete turn around from Trendwood. In ward coordination yesterday our ward mission leader looks at us and he is giving this super uplifting speech about how teaching
by the Spirit means everything and that baptism don't determine your success and it was great. Sis Sommers and I look at each other and we just bust up laughing. Bro Carlson
 was like seriously sisters this isn't funny I'm trying to be serious. But we were just getting serious whiplash form Bro Hinckley our Trendwood mish leader. We would get lectures in
coordination he seriously would spend 45 min about how baptism are SO important and our success is determined by numbers. It just made me laugh. I love Holmes Lake.

But yeah sorry I don't have anything super spiritual. I've spent most of my time trying to send pictures. Oh I'm doing well. Things are going great. :)

Love ya'll

Sister Curfew

February 18, 2014

Dear Family,

Dad your email was the best. :) So I have been thinking a lot on Lord of the Rings lately and I have drawn a lot of comparisons between the gospel and Lord of the Rings. So
it really made me laugh that you compared it to Star Wars. It is SO geeky, but I don't really care. It makes me happy. :)

 I am for sure learning the power of prayer.

That's funny that you said you see a lot of you in me. Because earlier this week I said something, I can't remember what, and I was like I just sounded like my Dad. So I see it too.
And it's not a bad thing!
I have been studying like crazy meekness this week in personal study. I have come the conclusion that meekness is being humble. Being humble is knowing where your true
strength lies. Knowing where your true strength lies gives you an added measure of power. Therefore meekness is great power under great control. I have also gained even more
of a testimony of the Atonement this week. Turns out the Atonement is not just for repenting. It's also about getting some added strength from our Savior Jesus Christ. I'm sure this

isn't news to everyone else...but I'm a little slow when it comes to learning the gospel and it clicked this week. I have applied it and it's been awesome. :)

But anyway those our my ways of combating my temper/personal weakness. I also have another fault when I get offended I just don't care anymore and I become really apathetic...also bad. So hopefully
I will be able to fix my faults sooner or later.

So I asked my mission president what brought on this inspiration to transfer us in the middle of the transfer. He replied back and said it was because of your faith and prayers. It just
made me laugh. I was like I didn't pray to get transferred! I prayed that I would be able to endure/handle this area and build it up. Sometimes the Lord is waaaaay to nice to me.

But this past week has gone by insanely fast. Time here is a joke. An hour is like 5 min to me...So much to be done always.

Anyway L got baptized this week!!!!!! She made it! It was a very incredible experience for her. :) She is so pumped to be a member. I have never

taught anyone with so much faith as this woman. :) Thank you so much for your prayers. We had a couple of close calls of her wanting to back out so I know we got a little extra help
with her this week. Thank heavens. My favorite part was when she got confirmed on Sunday and she gets up and comes to us and goes "I'm a Sister now!!!" She really likes the idea

of ward families. This inspires me to get know the people in my wards that I will attend at home.

We went to say goodbye to her because we're not allowed to visit people in Trendwood anymore. (Even though we live in Trendwood.) And she looked different! I hear people say that

and I'm like that's weird. But really she looked different. The gift of the Holy Ghost is truly something remarkable. This woman just inspires me to be the best I can be! She will do great
things. :) When we explained the temple to her and baptisms for the dead. She was like "You can do that??? That's SO cool! when can I go?" One of the hardest things for me as a missionary

is giving the investigator to the ward. Members have to trust the missionaries. Missionaries also have to trust the members...
I know they will take care of her but that ward is full of Less Actives...they can barely take care of the people I have. So my worry is that she

will go Less Active. But we talked with the Elders and they said they would make sure the ward helps her.

Oh! Crazy story. So an hour after L was baptized we went out to dinner. A member took her and us out for Chinese. (Mmm) Laura asked to say the blessing
on the food and the member like freaked out and was like no I don't pray for food in public. So it was really awkward for moment...and we prayed anyway. Sis S and I were like seriously?! It's only been an hour and she already got her feelings hurt! Satan you play dirty. But Laura was so awesome when she talked to us about it
she said. We're family. Sisters forgive. I was like oh my gosh you're amazing. :) So yeah.

Holmes Lake is treating us really well. Really well. :) They are very loving and super dedicated to missionary work. We have been very blessed to be in this ward.

So now we just gotta find us some investigators in Holmes Lake. :) I'm doing well.

How was Aidan's birthday? How's everything going at home?

Love ya'll. The Church is true.

Love, Sister Curfew