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Hello...i've got news!

Hey Hey!

So this week has been the most crazy busy/ stressful (in a good way, no complaints!) of the mission so far! We had our first baptism!!!! This was the first time i was able to see someone take all the lessons and then join the church! It was the highlight of my week by far....

Andy Bastien was baptized saturday July 9th at 10 am at the North Edmonton Stake centre by his much taller friend Joseph who is preparing to go on a mission right now! The turn out was great and we had lots of fun treats afterward. During the baptism Joseph couldn't get Andy all the way under the water so he had to be dunked three times! each time he had to do it again Andy would say "jo, just don't kill me!" haha it was hilarious and everyone just loves andy! While andy was getting changed we had everyone there write on a square peice of paper their testimony, we talkeda bout the importance of testimony in scripture and in our church and then assembled it into a book for andy to read along with his blessing he received after receiving the gift of the holy ghost.On sunday Andy received the Gift of the Holy Ghost, then the Aaronic priesthood and a temple reccommend so that he can go do baptisms for the dead on tuesday before the Edmonton Temple closes till december for renovations! It was a whirl wind but o man andy is so ready.... he has that testimony, a change of heart so it's full steam ahead on enduring to the end! He's thinking about serving a mission and i can't wait to see him just soak up all the blessings the Church of Jesus Christ has to offer :D

This week was also my 22nd birthday!!! I received an amazing package from my family and had a lot of fun opening it! i definitely am spoiled to say the least! My comopanion also made me no bake cookies (gluten and lactose free of course! ) they were delicious and we wore new years eve hats while singing happy birthday and blowing out candles. The members were great and i got a couple cards and a marangue fruit cake at the bennett family's house after my favourite dinner of bbq chicken and corn was eaten! they are the best. i'm really going to miss kingsway ward....

because i'm being transfered! I am being sent to the Millwoods YSA ward, which is an area of Edmonton. The area was closed down last transfer and me and sister Hao are going there to reopen it.... yes it's the same sister Hao from South Korea that i came over to edmonton from the mtc with! so crazy!!!! We are excited but sooooo nervous because we don't know anyone, the area, or anything! it's going to be interesting but i'm so prepared to do the work! Sister hayes is staying in kingsway and will be training her last three months. she's amazing, we are best friends and always will be! the new sister is lucky to have such an amazing trainer and i'm happy we'll run into each other as we both will be going to church at the institute building!

well we've had so much rain this week! we went for a run and got caught in a terenchal down pour half way.... now i really know how fast i can run! lol

Other then that i'm just VERY excited for Michelle's baptism tomorrow night! michelle is a special girl.... she's been through so much and through listening to the holy ghost and having a desire to follow christ is going to be reborn and start a new life tomorrow! she has such a strong testimony i feel so blessed to be a part o fher life and know we'll be good friends forever.

Alvaro our mexican investigator is so cute and funny.... he was having some troubles with doubts as we were discussing the gospel of jesus christ steps: faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the holy ghost and enduring to the end. we told him to pray and he asked us to pray for him. yesterday he excitedly told us that he received an answer to his prayers and will be baptized july 31st so that his friends will be in town! hopefully because i'm in the city i'll be able to go to the baptism!

I am LOVING my mission..... i can explain it enough i'm just loving all the experiences and learning and meeting such wonderful people. it's hard to believe i had a life before this! To infinity and beyong :P

Love ya lots,

Sister Wotherspoon

Hey Everyone! (July 4)

hey everyone! t

his week has been crazy i have absolutely NO idea where the time has gone so here goes the email....

Not a ton of things to announce today but i had a super fun week! had lots of lessons with investigators and had the priveledge to have my first investigator get interviewed for baptism.... and he passed! Andy Bastien will be baptized this saturday at 10am at the North Stake Centre in Edmonton and of course you are all invited! lol :D i'm very excited and andy is so wonderful and so ready he's practically a member already i swear it!

Lots of birthdays this week which was fun! Andy and Kevin our two investigators were celebrating birthdays so we made them crepes with nutella, peanut butter and fruit and ate them while having our usual morning lessons. it's a great way to start off the day! for andy i made him wear a birthday hat, we sang and had a candle in his crepe it was hilarious! I'll attach some pictures...

Canada day was friday and we had some lessons set up but because of the no proselyting rule on holidays me and sister hayes hit the parties! We first went to St. Albert and went to their celebration in the park. there was entertainment, watermelon, tatoos, baloons, tanks and cherry picker machines you could go up in! haha good times.... we then went and stopped by a free bbq and it was so funny...... we were standing in line when we realized we didn't really fit in with the homeless crowd but we enjoyed the burgers and hot dogs and chatted with the people :D We then spent the rest of the afternoon down at the edmonton legislature building because it was open to the public! so we got to go all around inside and all the fountains out front were just full of little kids swimming and playing. the weather was perfect and overall i had a blast! lots of love for my home country :D

Well! we spent a lot of our time finding also this week and i had a really intense experience that is hard to share over email but in short it really affected me to the point that when i was sittign in fast and testimony meeting this sunday i couldn't help but get up. i felt so strongly to share my testimony of the book of mormon.... a lady we had tracted into after a while of chatting looked at me straight in the eye and said to me, after i had bore my testimony of having a prophet, "i am so sad that a young girl like you would blindly follow a man's interpretation of the scriptures, you need to read the verses for yourself and interpret them for yourself to know what they say and follow your own spirit". i was shocked! and hurt..... had my testimony come off as fake or brainwahsed? i litterally write this letter today to tell everyone who reads it that i know PERSONALLY that the book of mormon and the bible are the word of God. i have ready EVERY verse of scripture, i have prayed, studied and read them again and i can bare witness that the book of mormon is the book in which we can be the closest to God and Jesus Christ. If there is any thing going wrong in your life, questions, concerns, trials, unrest, turn to the book of mormon and in it you will receive peace, direction and confidence. i love this work, i love being a missionary and i love seeing the way people's hearts change and turn towards christ as they read from the book of mormon. i love you all and thank you for all the birthday wishes! i'm excited to turn 22 tomorrow... craziness!!!

peace and blessings ( haha)

with love, sister wotherspoon

Hey Hey from Edmonton! (June 27)

Hey Everyone....

So that postal service eh? it's been rough! no mail now for three weeks in a row! The mail boxes here are locked so don't be offended if you don't get mail from me in the near future! The word on the street is that the government will step in this week and force them to go back to work but you can only dream!

So this week on the mission has been busy! We have so much to be greatful for in the kingsway ysa area!! My most exciting news is that we have three solid baptismal dates set now for july and i just feel so blessed to have seen the change of heart occur in these people's lives!

Michelle is amazing! We asked her to pray this week and ask heavenly father when she should be baptized. We told her preferable on a friday or saturday. She said she prayed and after her prayer the date july sixteenth came to her head.... she then thought wait when is that? looked at a calendar and saw it was a saturday! i was so impressed by the faith she had to ask heavenly father and open her heart and mind to an answer from the spirit. i know and am confident that when we go forward in faith every pray we say is answered!

Alvaro is a sweet heart and says "wow" after we teach him a gospel principle! he's so excited to learn more and feels that everything we believe just makes sense. he's preparing to be baptized july 23 and is amazing and reading and understanding the book of mormon even though english is his recent second language! so impressive...

Andy bore his testimony to us this week on how he knows that the book of mormon is the word of god and that he wants to follow the savior. he's so excited to be baptized next saturday and we're working hard to help him feel ready and confident to enter the waters of baptism.

Right now there are so many things going on the world! Also so many things that at times i feel i'm missing out on... i've been really sick this week.... no mail.... and did everyone hear my brother was drafter june 24th in minnesota to the calgary flames!!!!!! i'm so proud of him! i wish so bad i could have been there and can't help but tell EVERYONE about it.... he's amazing and is such a great example of someone who works so hard and sacrifices to make his dream come true!

No matter what happens though i feel so blessed to be here on a mission, i've grown so much, and can you believe i've been out of just over four months! boy does time flie!!!! transfers are comming up fast again, july 13th! it's definitely the time of the transfer to really get to the grind and do everything you can to accomplish heavenly father's work in your area!

Love you all, stay strong, and keep the faith!!!

sister wotherspoon

Hey Ya'll

Hello from Edmonton!

Another crazy week in the Kingsway YSA ward that's for sure!

This week as a missionary it was definitely a rollercoaster of emotion! overall we had four investigators drop us and mett three new investigators! I don't even know where to start...

We mett with mark and sara this week and i was all excited to have a spiritual discussion when mark let us know that these lessons once a week were turning into too much of a time committment so this would be the last time we mett. i was shocked! The lessons have always been amazing and he definitely agrees with the teachings of the church but i guess he just wasn't ready. Sara said she's not done with learning however and would like to pick the lessons back up at the end of the summer. There's hope!

The other two investigators that have decided to stop meeting with us are Renee and Peter, yes! the two with the baptismal dates in the next two weeks. They are both amazing people with really strong testimonies of the gospel of jesus christ. Renee had been taught all the lessons we teach plus set up an interview with the bishop and Peter had just one more lesson to go! Sadly i would really like to take this opportunity to share my testimony of the importance of attending church! Something i know to be true is that our worship each week on the Sabbath day is not just to make our Heavenly Father happy but it's to bring peace, direction and strength to our lives. I don't hesitate to say that Satan works really hard on us and it's so important to have that one day a week to seperate ourselves from the world and kind of sit back and take a look at the bigger picture, the eternal picture! Both of these people had missed a couple weeks of church in a row and of course they arn't perfect and fear and doubt came into theird minds. Is their spiritual journey over? of course not! they will always have the knowledge of the gospel they earned i hope more than anything that we will be able to see them in the future and remain friends!

But of course... the missionary work, the work of the Lord goes forth! We mett some AMAZING people this week! Michelle is great and she came to our first lesson with a solid background of mormon.org! Which was fantastic and kind of a missionary's dream! because of her knowledge she came to the lessons prepared with questions and we were able to have a really intimate real conversation about the restoration of Christ's Church on the earth through a prophet! it was great, she's been reading from the book of mormon and came to church yesterday. i love seeing the excitement and joy of the gospel in people and pray that her happiness in learning the gospel and following jesus christ will continue!

We taught Kevin after church yesterday and he's actually a friend of one of our members! Joseph is preparing to go on a mission and mett kevin at work. We learned a lot about kevin's background and he is so excited to have a personal experience with Heavenly Father and reading the book of mormon for himself to know if it's true.

Alvaro was our third new investigator and he blew my socks off! we mett for the first time with him yesterday and learned he's from mexico here on a work visa and learned english. he's a chemist and one of the youngest of 9 children. he grew up in the catholic church but didn't agree with all their teachings. so.... him along with some of his friends in the ward taught him the first lesson and while sister hayes recited joseph smith's first vision experience alvaro's eyes filled with tears and he didn't know what to say! the spirit was VERY strong and as we invited alvaro to say the closing prayer he literally pleaded with the Lord to help him know if joseph smith and the book of mormon are true. he said he'd be willing to do anything to follow jesus christ. i couldn't help but tear up a little bit.... how sweet and how prepared he is.

i know that the lord prepares through his angels and the holy ghost EVERY single person on this earth. we are all his children and he loves us and knows us all intimately! I love being a part of the missionary work and pray every day that the lord's will will be done in the edmonton area. I have been blessed to teach many people of the gospel of jesus christ but like it says in the scriptures (ether 12) we will not gain a witness of true testimony of this restored gospel of jesus christ untill after the trial of our faith. The trial of our faith will not be one event but is the purpose of this earth experience!

I am so greatful for everyone's support and prayers and hope that you all are experienceing missionary experiences each day as you live as an example of christ . as sister hayes would say, love ya'll!!!

love sister wotherspoon