Road Trip

[Sent 13 Jan, 2015.  Amelia did not have time to write two letters this week, so what you have here is an excerpt from the letter she wrote to her family.]

As a trainer, I basically just keep doing what I do and try to help Sisar Lafferty understand why and learn to do it on her own. There isn't any official training to be a trainer, besides the little meeting we had together before the new missionaries arrived. When a new missionary comes in, they go through what's called The 12-Week Program, which is a booklet with practice activities and study material, and it's my job to get her through the booklet during our extra hour of companionship study. The idea is that the first 12 weeks of the mission will be equivalent to 10 months in the field as far as development goes, and that once a missionary has gone through it, they will be ready to take on any missionary calling, including being a trainer. So I guess you could say that every missionary is officially trained to be a trainer.

A really nice thing about training is that when all I sometimes see in myself are my weaknesses and things I need to improve, the only thing Sisar Lafferty seems to see are the things I do well. So that's nice. She pointed out to me after a couple particularly interesting days my ability to listen to and follow the Spirit, and that is something I really have been working on.  So, the fact that she can recognize it, even though I know I need to keep improving, was very comforting.

As far as our week goes, we've had some really good meetings with investigators, of whom we have few, but they are pretty awesome. M is still doing well, still progressing even if she feels she needs time. Right now we're just working on making sure that she is feeling the Spirit and growing in her faith. She's at a particularly delicate point. We can bet the adversary is working on her even more strongly than ever, but we know that if her faith stays strong she can overcome him. She will get there soon.

New on the roster is T, another young Finnish woman studying pharmacy. She is strongly religious, which is awesome, but she is very set on the Bible as being the only necessary book, and everything else seems really silly to her. But, she is willing to keep meeting and discussing, and said that if God tells her the Book of Mormon is necessary then she will live in accordance with its teachings. She's as good as gold (we hope).

We've done a lot of searching this week, and made a bit of a "road trip" through our areas to do some contacting. I realized very quickly that there are a lot of places that we're responsible for that I've never actually been to, so we're doing some work to remedy that. We found some sweet new potentials in some of those areas, and are excited to see what kind of miracles take places in these areas that are bursting with potential.

There's really not to much else to say about our week, other than that it's been really cold (like negative 10-20 Celcius) and that it's snowed a lot. I love the cold so much. I do, however, highly anticipate the return of the sun. It's making its way back and it already gets light about 30 minutes earlier and dark about 30 minutes to an hour later. Progress.

Our new mission scripture of the month is Moroni 7:33. I invite you to read it an discuss it together as a family. Our strength is in Jesus Christ. It literally comes from our faith in Him. They say that love is the most powerful force on earth, and, well, our faith is a way of showing our love for our Savior, and His love in return multiplies that force infinitely so that we can literally do anything that He asks of us. That's pretty powerful, even if we may not fully understand how it works. If you ever think you can't do what He asks and that it is too hard, just remember that you don't have to do it alone. He will help you.

I love you all! I hope you are having a wonderful day and that you remember the truth of the Gospel I am sharing. You can share it too. Go out an be bold today!

Kaikkilla rakkaudellani,

Sisar Hillebrant

Changes gave me a chance for a photo with all my prior companions:
(from left) Sisars Bunting, Ross, Owen (then me) and Howell