HELLO FAMILY!! How are all of my playa playas? I miss you all and pray for you EVERY NIGHT. This week might have been the most exhausting week of my whole mission. Sister Arnold and I were so dead last night. It was kind of funny. I feel asleep on my knees again. HA! I think I woke up around 12:15 and crawled into bed. But don't even worry. I kind of like it. Working hard and being so tired at the end of the day is so rewarding! There are so many things I want to write about so I'm just going to take it day by day!!
Monday: We email at the family history center at our church building and a lady in our ward brought in her leftover Halloween candy for us. It was a very large amount. I'll attach a pic. We had an awesome FHE with a returning member mom and an investigator daughter! They fed us, we sang, we prayed then had a lesson. It was so fun being with a family on a Monday night! Tatum is 11 and said she might want to be baptized! YAHOO! We'll keep teaching her!
Tuesday: I was in Hamilton Mountain with Sister Mass! It was an awesome exchange. We started the day doing service at a retirement home. They play bocce ball each Tuesday morning but it's hard for them to pick up the balls after they roll them across the floor so that's what we did! :) They had an odd number of players so I got to play and my partner, Clair, and I killed it! I guess the old people never get close to hitting the white ball because when I hit it on my second turn they all started clapping and gasping. It was the funniest.
We spent the afternoon contacting and we had some really cool experiences! We knocked on this one door and a YSA guy answered. He didn't seem very interested but then I randomly asked him about music. So we started talking about that. I asked if he like Neon Trees and guess what? He loves them and has been to their concerts. We told him that the drummer is a Mormon. And he had no idea! But he is a huge fan of her because he plays the drums too! Anyways, we told him about the I'm a Mormon video she had online and he was so excited to look it up. At the end of the contacted he asked if we read minds. HA. um nope. But we can receive inspiration through the spirit! It was cool. I love making each contact different and really getting to know people because missionaries aren't robots we're people! We also met a family in the same area and mother said that she would come to church and bring all her kids! I really hope they went!
Wednesday: We had MLC. It was awesome! Yes, I'm still obsessed with the Claytons and I learned so much from them! It was cool at the beginning of the meeting we talked about Heavenly Fathers purpose and read Moses 1:39. Then talked about Jesus Christ's purpose and read John 14:6. Then we recited our purpose as missionaries and talked about how we need to help people understand how they can access the Atonement through the Doctrines of Christ. It was cool!
President Clayton talked about how we can help our investigators, new converts, and returning members progress even more. He presented different points of how our teaching could be more effective.
-Teaching so simply! In a way that an 8 year old would understand.
-Teaching a lesson in 15-20 mins. Shorter and more frequent visits are much for effective than a 2 hour lesson once a week.
-We won't answer all of their questions. But we'll give them reading assignments so they can read and find their answers for themselves. Give them PERSONALIZED commitments.
-Make simple, true promises.
-Daily contact with all the people we're working with.
Aren't all of those so good! Yeah, we've already seen miracles from it as we've implemented these points in our area. YAY!
Funny story about Wed evening. So after MLC the assistants suggested that we all go out to dinner together. We didn't have time to go back to Brantfort before we headed to London so we were planning on grabbing something anyways. Well we got there an realized that all of the sisters decided not to come. So it was me and Sister Arnold and like 8 companionships of Elders who were eating ribs. HA. Kinda weird. Oh well.
Thursday: I went straight from Brampton to another exchange in London. I spent the day with Sister Hunter! We had an awesome day together! We went to a park and contacted for a while and it was SO MUCH FUN! We saw 2 adorable Asians sitting at a bench so we went up and talked to them. They were so nice and offered us some candy and said "because you so friendly." So we started to talk to them about what we do as missionaries and they said they would be super interested in meeting with us and learning more!! They invited us to come for dinner next week before we share a message with them! YAY! We also told them about the Mandarin speaking Elders in the area and they said to invite them too! So it's going to be a perfect situation. They'll have a pass off lesson next week and I'm so sad I'll miss it! Ha But it was fun to call the Elders after and tell them about their 2 awesome potential investigators who are going to feed them next week! Exchange miracles I tell ya! That night Sister Arnold and I were SO TIRED!!
Friday: We actually had to wake up early because we had an instruction that we needed to give at zone council that day and we hadn't prepared for that at all. So at 5:30 we tried super hard to focus and think about what we could say or ask to help the missionaries have more sincere prayers. Well we put it all together and it actually went really well! The missionaries all participated a lot and it was a great discussion. We showed a video of Elder Bednar talking about different ways we receiving revelation. You should all watch it! It's called, "Patterns of Light: Spirit of Revelation." SO GOOD! We got home at 2 then taught 9 lessons that afternoon and evening. We actually went on splits and it was so much fun! I went with Sister Emmett and Sister Arnold went with Tassia. We are so blessed to be in a ward with amazing members who love missionary work!! It was such a crazy happy day!
Saturday: At 5:09 AM I woke up ticked because Sister Arnold was making super loud noises! Then I realized it was the darn fire alarm!! So we got up put on some layers and went outside for like 1 hour. I was super grumpy. After studies we raked some leaves for a member and I totally knelt in dog poo. I didn't think it was very funny but now looking back at the whole morning. IT'S WAY FUNNY. Don't worry. The day got a whole lot better when we went to the temple with our recent convert Ashley! Man, I had been looking forward to that day for SO LONG! And it was perfect! She took her own family names and the spirit was so strong! We all had an amazing experience. That night we had the adult session of stake conference. It was great. If I had more time I would write about some things that really stood out to me. We got back super late... Like 10:15 so that was bad. Luckiy a member drove us home and could go faster than Tiwi would let us drive!
Sunday: Stake conference was great! Had an awesome lesson with Johnthon! A new investigator who is truly seeking for truth! We promised him he could know by reading from the Book of Mormon and praying. He's excited to do those things! Yahoo. We had 5 other lessons that were great. Then we went home and planned then passed out.
It's been a crazy, tiring week. But SO GOOD at the same time! I love being a missionary!!
Hope you are all doing super awesome!
Sister Dayton
OH!!! I totally forgot a huge highlight of the week! I met some people that Becky and Ryan know from the Nauvoo pageant! Becky was a gem and set it all up and wow it was the happiest! The Heimonens are so amazing and it was so fun to talk to someone who knows Becky and Ryan! AHHH I couldn't stop smiling.
All of the missionaries were jealous because they gave me an adorable bag with cookies, a candle and a cute saying to hang up in our apartnemt. That made my day even better!!!
With Sister Arnold
The Amazing Heimonens
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