April 7, 2014

Hey I hope that you guys have had a great week! 

 This week nothing really new happened, but it went by pretty fast.  It was pretty rainy this week, BUT all of the flowers and trees have blossomed, and so it is so beautiful!!  Really, it is so pretty everywhere.  All of the green fields have now turned to just yellow flowers.  It looks like the scene in The Wizard of Oz when she is running through the yellow fields.  Seriously, when you are out in the country, all you can see for miles is just yellow fields.  Its beautiful.  It really makes me so grateful to be serving here. 

 This week we have been working alot with Less Actives and with N.  On thursday we went on splits with the branch missionaries and we went and visited some of the less actives that we can't get to without a car, so that was really effective.  N is progressing so much.  N really really wants to get baptized while both Sister Scott and I are here, and he knows that one of us will leave in a few weeks, so he is really trying to get there.  We have set a date for him to stop smoking by, and then if he can do that, then he will be baptized on May 3rd.  So we are really really working with him.  He hasn't liked any of the other sisters, and he refused to take the lessons from them, but for some reason, he likes us and he is actually accepting the lessons that we teach him hahahaha.  He is so funny.  He is like obsessed with books.  So he will always be buying us books about things that we like from the charity shop, even though he knows that we aren't allowed to read them. He wants us to take them home and read them when we get home.  Hahaha.  Like yesterday, he bought me a book, I forgot the name, but its the book that J.K Rowling wrote right after Harry Potter.  Bless him, he is so funny.  But yeah, I have faith that he can stop smoking, and I really do think that he will get baptized this transfer.  

We were able to watch the Women's Conference and the first 3 sessions of General Conference this weekend.  We had to go to the Grimsby chapel and watch them, (it is a new rule by President Pilkington that we had to watch conference at the chapel), and so we were there like all of Saturday and Sunday, because we wouldn't have had enough time to travel home anyways.  But they were so good!!  Really, it blew my mind as usual!  I'm excited to finish watching the last session.  It makes me so excited to go home and actually go to the conference center.  All of the talks were great, but I especially liked the one by Elder Oaks about obedience, Elder Uchtdorf about gratitude, and the ones about becoming true Disciples of Jesus Christ.  We all need to realize that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is supposed to enable all of us to act.  To become more like Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father is the purpose of our life on earth.  If we are not progressing and consistently trying to emulate Christlike attributes, then we are doing nothing but hurting ourselves.  I know that Christ lives.  I know that President Thomas S. Monson is God's true spokesman and prophet on the earth today.  We, as members of Christ's true church have a responsibility to act.  We have the happiness that others can't even imagine of.  We need to defend our faith and rise to the occasion.  God needs all of us now.  My name is McKell Staheli, and I stand for Jesus Christ.

I hope that you guys have a great week!

Sister Staheli

April 1 , 2014

Hey hey hey! 

 So another transfer has come and gone, and it is blowing my mind how fast my mission is passing by!  I have already been out for 7 1/2 months!  It is so crazy, and I just love it here in England!  So the big news is.......We get to stay together for another month and work here in Louth!  It was actually a huge surprise to both of us.  We both thought that one of us would leave, but we are both stoked to be able to serve together for another transfer.  Next transfer is only 5 weeks long, so it will fly by anyways.  But yeah i'm really excited for  this next transfer. 

 We have been finding a lot of potential investigators and we have 2 good solid investigators.  So I'm excited to just hit the ground running hard for this next transfer.  And it will be kind of fun, because my friend from high school-Elder Hilyard will be my zone leader.  But this week was a good one.  Same old same old haha, But it was good.  We had a lot of funny experiences.  And we were lucky enough to have the car for 3 days, so that was great.  I feel a lot more comfortable driving now than I did earlier.  Its not that bad afterall!  Plus now that transfers are over, I will be scheduling a day to take my test in like the next 2 or so weeks.  I just need to get it over with.  But with the car we were able to see a less active family, that literally lives in the middle of nowhere!  They live in the tiniest village.  It took us forever to find it with all of these tiny little roads.  So we got there at like 7:40, and we get inside and they had made us dinner.  It would have been fine, except we had just eaten dinner at our branch president's home, and it was a typical english feast.  Oh my gosh my stomach hurt so bad.  I seriously couldn't sleep because it hurt so bad.  There was nothing that we could do, we just have to shut up and eat it.  hahaha.  Thats the one down side of being a missionary,  I CAN'T CONTROL WHAT I  EAT.  The people are REALLY NICE and just want to feed us! !!!!! haha.  But it was good.  It was mothers day for England yesterday, so it made me think of my own mom and my sisters, and how excited I am to skype with ya'll in just over a month:)  L is doing good!  And we are starting to work with her mom a little bit as well.  It looks like she is set on having her baptism in June- we think it is a replacement for her wedding which was supposed to be in June-But we will just continue to try and help her feel more ready.  We are still working with the branch and trying to strengthen them as much as we can.  Things are great, and I'm excited to get hard to work here in Louth!!!!!  I hope you all have a great week:)

Sister Staheli

                                                                         Little kitty on my lap

Hey, Hey Hey. Mar. 24, 2014

Hey hey hey ya'll!! 

 Okay so this week was a good one, Sister Scott and I have been sick again this week.  Well actually Sister Scott has been sick for like months now, so I forced her to go to the doctor on Friday, because its not normal to be sick for that long, and they took her blood and gave her some anti-biotics to help her clear it up.  Hopefully we can both finally get over this dang cold. haha.  But it was a good week.  It was raining for most of the week, and it even snowed yesterday.  But the good news from this week is that N is really really progressing!  It is really amazing to see how he has come.  He is still smoking, but he is so funny.  Since N LOVES to talk and he just talks so much, we have been trying a new way of teaching him.  We have been teaching him off of the mormon.org videos, (if you haven't seen them, they are GREAT), and we have just been doing it principle by principle, so that we can cover it all.  But it has been working!  And he has been reading the book of mormon for real this time, so thats fantastic!  And everytime we talk about transfers (They are next week by the way, so my p-day won't be until tuesday), he gets like super super sad and tells us that he really hopes that he can get baptised before we both leave.  And he has told that to members that he talks to in town as well.  And when we mentioned transfers yesterday he was like in denial about it and then told us that if we got transfered that we'd have to keep in touch, and then he said like the cutest/saddest prayer, and it like broke my heart!!!  So 'Uncle Nl', is doing really good!!  

L is doing well too!   She is still having a hard time giving up tea, people here are literally obsessed with their tea.  But I think she is really buckling down and getting to it now.  Her new date for baptism is April 11th, and so I'm really hoping that both Sister Scott and I will be able to go to it!  But yeah the branch loves her.  Speaking of the branch....So by May, there will have been like 15 active members that will have moved away.  Its crazy, so the branch is like in freak out mode because they are losing so many people.  So Sister Scott and I are a little stressed, but we are doing our best.  Things are great!  And we are working with a ton of less active members at the moment, and it seems to be paying off.  When we went to visit one less active member, she told us that she has 5 families that she wants us to teach, because she taught them the 10 commandments, just like we taught her, and they were interested.  So we were pretty happy, because of course we would love to teach 5 families.  Also, this same less active woman taught us both how to knit, so in all of our free time-since we have so much of it-we are now knitting. :)  Anyways, I love you all , and I hope you have a great week!  Also, Happy Birthday shout out to my big sister Chels!!  Love ya sis!!  Have a great week!:)

Sister Staheli