Hello Everyone from the still frozen land of Edmonton!!

This week has been intense and busy which is great of course because it keeps me out of trouble ! :P Well this week we had zone conference, my first one on the mission! All the missionaries from the Edmonton North Zone gathered at the church building and heard from our Mission President, President Campbell and his wife, also from our Assistants to the President and Zone Leaders. They were all magnificant and really inspirational! They talked a lot about the importance of using the atonement daily! It's only through the atonement that we are able to be humble and see others and ourselves as children of God and then through the holy ghost be worthy of guidence to know of what we need to do to help others or ourselves progress in this life. I know this is true! Lucky for me i really enjoy talking to people ont he street, at the door, in the grocery store or where-ever!! but sometimes i get down on myself for not being knowledgable enough or creative enough or have enough energy to do all the things that are on our daily list! I know that if i'm doing all the i can and pushing myself that the savior can makeup for my weaknesses and boy is that a relief! the atonement is there for everyone! use it!!!

We also learned about the importance of including the members in the missionary work and teaching them short lessons and asking for referals. I never really liked when the missionaries did this to me but wow being a missioanry puts it into a different light! Our mission president has promised all of us that each member of the church knows someone who God is preparing to ACCEPT the gospel of jesus christ because we are his hands! That really gave me a lot of courage to start asking the members for their help. We asked 11 members this week and no referals yet but i keep praying that the members will have faith in themselves to just invite their friends to activities and to church. Remember what i learned last week in stake conference? The success in missionary work comes in extending invitations! so i encourage all of you to invite others to receive to gospel, the good news of christ! :D Sister Campbel spoke about getting proper relaxation time and sleep, she suggested doing the yoga pose where you just lie on your bed or the floor and relax every muscel in your body as if you were dead and picture yourself on the beach.... haha it works!!!! i've never had a hard time sleeping untill on the mission, it's either from all the stress or sleeping with someone else in the room, either way i'm sleeping a lot better!

Now that you know i'm sleeping... haha a great miracle we saw this week was that 8 of our 10 less actives we've been meeting with came to church yesterday for the first time in months if not years! These are all young single adults remember and are generally 18 to 29 years old so a lot of them have either been struggling with being a new convert or wish they knew more people in the ward and get really nervous. It truely was a big thing for many of them to come back afraid of the attention but every one of them really felt the spirit in our meetings and were reunited with good friends or mett people in the wards. I am so greatful for the miracles of strength to these people that i've seen on my mission. They are so wonderful and i know the ward benefits greatly from their testimonies and special spirits they bring to the meetings! We need everyone in our church, everyone is equal that's for sure.

My last thought is from the movie we watched last night with members and it's from the new Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration movie. The movie was showing on temple square down in Salt Lake for years and is now finally on dvd! this movie is amazing and truely shows joseph smith for the remarkable prophet he was and is! We put the movie on for others to gain excitement in sharing the gospel but to be honest it renewed my sense of desire to be on the mission so much! I know joseph smith was a prophet there is no way this church would exist and still grow with members, missionaries and temples if it wasn't! I love the ending phrase in the movie " should we not go on in such great a cause?!" such a great question to really get you thinking.... if you havn't seen the movie please do it will change your life :D

Well everything else here in edmonton is doing great, the mission is moving forward and we are working really hard, thank you for all your letters, emails and prayers of support they give me so much strength and i'm deeply thankful! I pray everyday that we will come accross those who are ready to accept the gospel and.... that the snow will melt! haha Nana your email about the flowers being out made me really appreciate british columbia springs! no flowers here yet, apparently they don't come till may so i'll have to wait till then. im going to go and print off some pictures today at walmart so i'll send them home today ! hope you are getting my mail :D

miss you and love you all so much!

love sister wotherspoon