A Zone Conference and A Baptism - February 8, 2016

Jenny got baptized!!!!

So that was our week in a nutshell!

Tuesday was our zone training though. We went over everything we learned from the missionary broadcast. It was really neat. For the rest of the transfer our zone is really going to focus on becoming a zion society. We are going to study a scripture about zion each day. It will be really good.  

The scripture for today is Mosiah 18:21:

And he commanded them that there should be no contention

one with another, but that they should look forward with one eye, having one faith and one baptism, having their hearts knit together in unity and in love one towards 

another.

I love this. I know as we work together to become who Christ wants us to become we can work towards zion. I'm excited to study this more and learn more about zion. It is something I have never given much thought to but it is so important to the lord. 

Nothing else too exciting happened this week. We contacted a really sketchy referral so that was entertaining. 

Finally had dinner with the Krause family last night. They are a really cute active family that Sister stirling has been talking about since I got here. It was really fun and we talked about things that I definitely needed to hear. 

Serving a mission is the best. I just love it here. No matter what trials come your way you just keep on moving forward and look for the miracles. 

Love you all lots!

Love, Sister Frederickson

Another Week in Paradise - February 1, 2016

Hello! 

Things are going great in Indy! I love it here more everyday. 

Sister Stirling has been sick again this week with a cold but miracles happen and we saw everyone that we needed to see. Our investigator Delores came to church Sunday! She hasn't been for about a month and a half. We see her almost everyday at the nursing home. She can't read she we teach her the alphabet then read a story from the children's Book of Mormon and New Testament. She is so sweet! 

The bartlesville elders came up on Thursday for Jennys baptism interview. And one of them forgot their bag so they met us the next day at an assisted living center where they helped us paint old ladies finger nails. They ladies were in love with them it was adorable. We had a lot fun and may have taken the Elders camera and took 200 pictures with it. It was the best. Then we stuffed his bag with candy and nutella packets so that was great too. 

Had a great district meeting in bartlesville Wednesday. We have a great district. Bartlesville is one of the best zones so that is great! 

This upcoming week will be great. Tomorrow we have interviews then Saturday is Jenny's baptism and my half way mark so that will be fun. 

Super short but that's all for this week. Have a rockin' week and have fun in the snow for me. 

Love y'all! 

Love, Sister Frederickson

A Week of Miracles - January 25, 2016

Hello! 

First full week in Indy, Complete! 

It has been such a long but wonderful week! So many miracles have happened and I am so blessed to be here. 

Monday we went to the Oaks house for dinner. They have a bunch of taxidermy animals including a zebra. It was crazy! So of course I had to get a picture with it :) 

Tuesday we had a bunch of lessons. We met with our Investigator Jenny. She so amazing. I love her! She moved her baptism date up to Feb 6th so she can go to the temple on the 13th. We are so excited for her. 

One of her friends' house caught on fire and she was telling us about it. We told the relief society and everyone has been giving so much to help this family they don't know. Everyone here is so giving. They know so little but give so much. 

Wednesday we had the world wide missionary broadcast. It was incredible. I learned so much. I have been studying a lot about being a better missionary and improving skills and spirituality. I have also read the Riciardi Letter and the Donaldson Papers. SO AMAZING. I continue to learn and apply new things everyday. 

We have a standard of excellence that we try to meet every week. One of the things is have 60% of your lessons have a member present. This can be hard to do but even with our hectic week we hit it! We got 27 lessons this week, 63% Member present. We had 3 different exchanges with the youth on Sunday. It was such a miracle to have them come out with us. So we decided to make them cookies. They are all so amazing! 

Hope you all have a great week! Love and miss you lots! 

Love, Sister Frederickson

Welcome to Indy! - January 18, 2016

Hello!

I hope y'all are having a wonderful week.

 I'm loving it here in Independence ( Indy). 

It is different from Arkansas and Missouri though. I've been going through some culture shock lately :) It is great though! 

The people here are so nice, I absolutely love them! 

We have a ton of investigators here, it is the best! 2 baptisms coming up really soon so that is great. Maybe even a temple trip later this transfer. 

Sister Stirling and I on the way to our appointment. It was the best. we were leaving the apartment last night and it started snowing. I loved it! It was so beautiful. But it is FREEZING here.

I'm out of time but I love you all so so much! Sister Castor in Ash Flat taught me how to crochet so I totally made that scarf. I"m in love with it. 

 

Have a wonderful week. I love and miss you all! 

Love, Sister Frederickson

A new transfer, a new area - January 11, 2016

Transfers!

I'm going to Independence, Kansas. Hopefully that means I'll be a 4 state-er. (You have served in all for states) We leave on Thursday morning. I'm so so so sad to leave but It will be good. I'm trying really hard to trust in the Lord. It will be a good transfer though. I just hate to leave this area and leave Sister Franson. She finally taught the restoration for the first time on Friday! It was awesome! I don't know anything about Independence to it will be great to see it. I know it is more of a city than Ash Flat. About 9,000 people. It will be weird to get used to. And I'll hit my half way mark this transfer! Crazy!! I'm excited to meet my new companion, Sister Stirling. Haven't heard anything about her. 

On Friday Dorthy went back to the nursing home. she was staying with our relief society president Charlotte. So we helped pack her up and take everything over there. The people there are really nice so that is good. I hope she enjoys it there again. She was there about a year ago.

Friday we also had a new member lesson with the Castors grandkids. Their family just moved here from Oklahoma and the two oldest boys were baptized there. We didn't have a teaching record for them so we taught the restoration. We didn't know they had been taught it 3 times before! But it was good for sister Franson to teach them. and they were all cool about it. They knew all the right answers!

Sister Castor is teaching us how to crochet which is really cool! I'm really enjoying. She has been crocheting since she was 4! It is the coolest thing. 

We still have a lot of potentials we can't contact so the branch is having a fast on Sunday for potentials and missionary work. It will be really neat for the branch to come together on this. I know it will strengthen them a lot! 

I was able to go on exchanges with Sister Gerard again. It was a blast as always. I learn so much from her everyday. I'm thankful we were able to serve in the same zone together! 

I hope you all have a great week! I'll email my new address next week!

Love and miss you all!

Love, Sister Frederickson

New Year, New Commitments - January 4, 2016

Hello! I hope you all had a wonderful New Years! 

This week has been great! This whole week has been a little hectic trying to see everyone but we managed :) For New years eve we planned for the first half of the day. We had an awesome weekly planning session so our week is going to be packed with things to do! I'm excited for it. After planning we went to Sister Castors house and played games with her and her daughter Kaitlyn. It was a lot of fun! I was going to take pictures but completely forgot. We played Apples to Apples. It was so much fun. A great new years eve! We didn't stay up to midnight but that was fine by me. 

Friday we went tracting up in Salem and met this really cute family. We are going to hopefully start teaching them this week. They both seemed pretty open minded and interested. We gave them a Book of Mormon and introduced the church a little bit. I'd say it was a successful day. 

Sunday we taught the youth Sunday School and Young Womens so that was really fun. We taught the youth the restoration (we didn't have a lesson manual...). It was Sister Fransons first time teaching the restoration. It was awesome! Then we had dinner at the Newcoms. 

Things are starting to pick up in Ash Flat. We still have a lot of potentials we are trying to make investigators. The hardest part is them finding time to meet with us. :) 

There is no better time than the new year to start reading the Book of Mormon and starting a habit of prayer. It is so easy for us not to do the things we should. Life gets busy, we get tired, etc. but when we make the time to do those simple steps we find our lives happier. We manage to have the time to do everything we need to get done. Heavenly Father knows how important it is that we do those things. When we pray we keep open the line to ask for help, to tell him how we are doing, what we are struggling with, we can thank him for all we have. Prayer is so important. I promise that if you make time to read He will pour down the blessings. He is waiting to bless you. Start your new year with a commitment to Him. 

This is going to be a great week! Hope y'all have a great week as well! I love and miss you lots! 

Love, Sister Frederickson

Here is the mission blog:

arkansasbentonvillemission-loveland.weebly.com

The lovelands update it on what is happening. Enjoy! 

Christmas Week - December 28, 2015

What a week! 

Christmas eve we had a lesson with our recent convert Melanie. We read the christmas story in Luke. I think I read that story at least once a day all week. I absolutely love all the stories in the Bible about the prophecy's and birth of Christ. Then for dinner we went over to Marys house and it was so fun. I feel like I always take more away than what I teach her. She is so sweet. 

Christmas was a blast! We woke up and Sister Franson made me breakfast. So sweet! We opened up all our presents. Thank you for all the sweet cards everyone! I really loved them. :)

We went over to Sister Basshams house and skyped with our families. It was great to see everyone! I miss my family but I know they are taken care of. After that we went to the nursing home in Salem and sang with everyone. It was really fun. The Stephens came with us as well. (Sister Stephens is sister basshams daughter) We went back to the house and had dinner with them. the stephens girls got the funniest games for Christmas: Pie Face, Poopy Head, and Stinky Pig. They were so much fun! I love their family. :) Christmas is definitely my favorite holiday.

Last night we were at the Newcoms for dinner and their basement flooded from all the rain. It was a mess! So we helped them clean that all up. This weather has been crazy. I definitely miss Utah but this place is pretty great anyways. :) We finally had blue skies today! It was so nice to see. We have a lots of gray sky days from all the rain. I guess this is why it is always green here :) 

This is the better picture! This is at Mammoth Spring close to the Missouri border. We went up there a couple weeks ago. It was so pretty!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! I love you so much!

Sister Frederickson

Finally Emailing - December 23, 2015

Monday we had our Christmas Conference in Bentonville. It was so much fun! We had a good spiritual aspect to it in the morning then playing dodgeball. We played against the Tulsa zone which is like 20 Elders. It was slightly terrifying. Haha! We are one of the smallest zones so it just wasn't fair.... Oh well it was still a lot of fun. We also played a 'How well do you know your companion game." We did pretty good for just knowing each other for 3 weeks. after all the fun and games we had our Christmas program. People played the flute, violin, piano, and chimes. It was so pretty! I loved it. We have so many talented people in this mission. A missionary sang 'Mary did you know'. I definitely thought of you the whole time mom :) It was really good. That is one of my favorite songs. :) 

We got home around 11 that night. We were so tired!

Tuesday was crazy and that is why we didn't email. We went visiting teaching with Sister Bassham. It was really fun. It just took up most of our day. We came home and cleaned our house then went grocery shopping. Then we went to our dinner appointment at Heathers house. We always have a blast there! That was our day. We saw a lot of less actives with sister Bassham. We met a new person, Sister Nelson. She is really sweet, she went with the Mennonites for 13 or some odd years. She has some interesting views on life but really nice. We had fun getting to know her. We think her husband is the only thing keeping her from coming to church. 

 

Today has been good. We were doing studies this morning and there was a thunder storm. Didn't think much of it, just that it was cool. Charlotte comes over around noon and tells us there was a tornado this morning. We completely missed it! It was in Highland, about 10 or so miles from us. She said there were about 9 homes hit. I don't think anyone was hurt though.

This last week was fun. Not sure what we exactly did but we were busy! Last Monday we went up to MO to visit some semi-active members. They have a dairy farm so we helped with that. I forgot my service clothes at home so I milked the cows in a skirt! I don't have pictures but I know they took some so I'll email them when I get them. It was a lot of fun. We learned how to use all the equipment and also milk them by hand. (Sister palmer, I saw baby Soelberg. she is the cutest calf!) we had so much fun. all the kids were laughing at us because we had never done anything like it. It is just life for them. :)

One of the recent converts in the branch passed away last Sunday. We went to the viewing on Thursday then helped with the funeral on Friday. Brother Heath had been a member since the end of January. He found out he had lung cancer right before that. He was so sweet. I only got to meet him once. It was a really nice funeral. His wife is planning to go to the temple as soon as she can to get the rest of his work done.

We have been getting ready for Christmas. It has been great to really think about the true meaning of Christmas. It isn't about all the decorations or how many presents you get but the acts of service you do for people. Saturday we were able to help Sister Castor make cookies and take them to Less Active members in the Branch. Christmas is about the birth of Christ. I have been thinking a lot about why a Savior was Born. I know he is here to help us become better. To reach out to those who need his love. I'm grateful to be able to help people know Him more. Christmas as a missionary is so amazing. I love reading the story in Luke 2. He is wonderful and glorious. Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. Strive to remember him always.
                                                               christmas.mormon.org

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. I miss you all so much! I think of you often.