The Work of Salvation

Dear Everyone:

So I was a little wrong. I'm not in Vermont. I'm actually in Maine. Augusta, Maine. Funny story: my companion, Sister Cloward, came out the transfer after me. Her trainer was Sister Buxton. Sister Buxton, if you remember, was my trainer. So in missionary terms, Sister Cloward and I are actually sisters, because Sister Buxton was our mom. It's pretty fun, we get along great. She's from Mesa, Arizona, and she went to BYU for 5 semesters before her mission. We like to joke that we're kind of the same person. We are so similar in so many ways that it gets a little weird at times. But it's wicked awesome.

Sister Cloward is kind of a hipster though. Which is great. Especially when she dresses like a hipster version of Snow White. And everyone on church comments on it. I had to take a picture to share with you all. Enjoy.

Augusta is a lot different than Bedford was though. Augusta is the capital of Maine, but from what I've seen so far, it's not a very large city. It's barely a city at all. It's kind of like Provo. Manchester was definitely more cityish. But I'm liking Augusta. The ward here isn't very big, but our bishop, Bishop Dawbin, is so missionary minded! It's so great to know that we have the ward's help and support.

Speaking of help and support from the ward, I really really hope that each and every one of you went to the World Wide Leadership broadcast last night! Wasn't it amazing?? You guys. Missionary work really isn't that hard to do every day. You just tell people how awesome the Gospel is and invite them to learn more. It's simple! Leave all the really heavy lifting to us full-time missionaries. It's what we're supposed to do anyway.

Something else that's happening this week: I'm getting a new mission president! It's both really exciting and really sad. I love President and Sister Wilkey so much already! I can't believe that they're leaving! But President and Sister Stoker should be great. Sister Cloward knows them actually, they're from her home stake. It'll be very, very different. But different can be good.

We work with two Elders in our area - Elder Nielson, who has been out for about 6 months, and Elder Flake, who just barely came out last week. They're great missionaries, and lots of fun to work with. We're working on coming up with a family mission plan to share with everyone in the ward. We're gonna set Augusta on fire with missionary work, it's gonna be amazing!

It's been hard, adjusting to a new area. It's hard to plan what to teach people when you know absolutely nothing about them. And this area is a lot different than Bedford - when I got to Bedford we were already pretty well established and had a good base of people to teach. Here in Augusta we have about 3 people we're teaching. Sister Buxton and Sister Cloward just opened this area last transfer, so it's still very new. We're working hard though, doing our best. That's all that we're asked to do, right?

Love you all!

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg

Goodbye Bedford, hello...?

Dear Everyone:

Transfer calls were last week. Yup, I'm getting transferred. I'll find out tomorrow morning where I'm going. Luckily, I'm not training - I don't think I'm quite ready for that yet. I will be senior companion though, so we'll see how that goes. The best part though, is that means I'll get to drive! I've missed driving so much!

But with my luck, we'll probably be in one of the areas that doesn't have a car.

Unfortunately, we didn't go to the JSM yesterday. Jackie, our investigator wasn't home when we went to pick her up. We couldn't get a hold of her at all. Her car was in the driveway but no lights were on. She didn't answer the door, she didn't answer her house phone, she didn't answer her cell phone. We aren't sure what happened, especially since we talked to her on Friday and she was so excited about it! We don't know what's going on. It was a pretty big disappointment.

But we keep moving on. We spent all afternoon tracting instead. Woo hoo. Missionary life is the best. In the words of Nacho Libre, "It's fan-TAStic!"

Seriously though. It'll be weird to leave Bedford. I finally know my way around! Now I have to go figure out some new place! I'm really excited though. I can't wait to see what my new area will be like.

Cool story for this week - the second exchange Sister Aeschbacher and I went on, before we were companions, we found this woman named Maria, who is from Austria. We saw her once at the beginning of this transfer but then we kind of lost contact with her. We finally got in contact with her again last week. We happened to stop by late Thursday night and as we talked to her she said "I've been reading parts of that book you gave me. It's really good. I would really like to go to church sometime!"

So she followed us to church yesterday and stayed all three hours. She is so awesome.

The church is true!

The picture for this week is fun. It is me with the Earnshaws, the greatest family in Bedford. Brother Earnshaw was the ward mission leader, and he just got called to be Bishop yesterday. Every Saturday we'd go to his house for coordination meeting and they would make us waffles. Maddie and Nicole Earnshaw (by me) are the cutest girls in the world and I love them both with all my heart and soul. I'm gonna miss them lots.

Well that's the letter for this week kids. I'll let you know if I'm still in the Shire or not next week. I feel like Vermont is calling my name. We'll see what happens!

Love you all!

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg

If looks could kill.

Dear Everyone:

This week was mostly uneventful. Sorry. Although I did do another exchange this week! And I even got to DRIVE!! I stayed in Bedford this time, and Sister Capito, our Sister Training Leader (the girl version of a Zone Leader) came here. She goes home next week, so she has a pretty good idea of what she's doing. It was so great. She is amazing at missionary work and talking to people.
We had a great lesson with Nancy. She's the investigator who Sister Aeschbacher and I had such a terrible lesson with the first time we did exchanges together. It was kind of rough at first, but luckily we figured it out, so now we teach Nancy every week. But anyway. Sister Capito and I were teaching Nancy, and we decided we needed to ask her to pray about the Book of Mormon. Like, specifically about the Book of Mormon. I'm pretty sure she's never prayed about it before. So Sister Capito asked Nancy if she would pray about it right then, with us. Nancy doesn't like to be pushed to do what she doesn't want to do. And she doesn't usually pray with us there. So when Sister Capito first asked Nancy to pray about it, Nancy said she would - in her own way. Which was essentially a no. Sister Capito just said "Alright. So how about that prayer?" Then she folded her arms, bowed her head, and closed her eyes. Which was a good thing. I'm pretty sure that if Sister Capito had looked at Nancy after she asked that, she would be dead now. Nancy was shooting daggers out of her eyes like you wouldn't believe.

But she did it! Nancy actually prayed about the Book of Mormon, there, with us! The Spirit was so strong. It was amazing. We left right after that, and although Nancy was at church yesterday, we didn't have a chance to really talk to her about it at all. But it was great.

Some more exciting news from this week - we're going to the Joseph Smith Memorial this Sunday! There's a nice memorial set up at the birthplace of Joseph Smith in Sharon, Vermont. Which is in our mission. We're driving up on Sunday with Jackie Scott and Sister Pastrana.

I don't know if I've mentioned Jackie before. She is the sweetest lady. She's in her 70's and is a total sweetheart. We've been teaching her for a while. She grew up Catholic, and because of that she hasn't ever been to church. She feels like going to a different church would be betraying the God she grew up with. But she knows the Book of Mormon is true and she knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet. So we're hoping that visiting the memorial will be the last push to help her overcome that guilty feeling. Sister Pastrana, who is coming with us, also grew up Catholic, so they have a lot in common. It'll be great! I'm so excited!

Transfers are next week. We'll find out if we're changing or not on Saturday night. We have 20 new Sisters coming out - we only have like 30 in the mission right now. So I am pretty sure that Sister Aeschbacher and I won't be staying together. But I could be wrong - it wouldn't be the first time. I can't decide if I want to stay in Bedford or not though. I'm finally feeling like I really know the area and the members. And they're great. But at the same time, I kinda want to try somewhere new. But we'll see what the Lord has in mind for me.

But that's life right now. Just doing missionary work like there's no tomorrow. Because tomorrow we're going to be doing missionary work too. Its great.

Love you all! Make good choices!

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg

Sisters don't sweat, we glisten.

Dear Everyone:

The weather in New Hampshire is exactly like it is in Utah. Like I said in my last letter, 2 weeks ago it was cold and rainy all week. This week we had 4-5 days straight of 95-100+ degree weather. It was sooo hot! And now today it's raining again. But that's the reason for the title this week. My companion, who is from the south, said that as ladies, we don't ever admit to sweating when walking around all day. We just glisten more than usual.

Too much information?

Anyway, this week was pretty good. I can't believe we're already on week 5 of this transfer! A few fun things from this week:
We finally got in contact with Oscany and Carolina again! They set a baptismal date about 2 months ago, but then we lost all contact with them for about a month. We had lessons with both of them this last week though, and set a new baptism date for July. Oscany is so great. She's a junior in high school and wants to know the truth so badly. She's amazing. Our lesson this week was all about how she can come to know the truth of what we're teaching for herself. She's still pretty skeptical right now, but I know that she'll come to know the truth of it soon. We're going to try to set up a trip to the JSM with the Earnshaws (Maddie Earnshaw and Oscany are friends) sometime soon. And then Oscany will get baptized and then I'll talk her into going to school at BYU and then we'll all live happily ever after.

We also saw Kelly this week. We were helping a member (who lives in the same building) move out, and we thought we'd stop by and see if we could catch her at home, since she hasn't been answering her phone. Luckily, she was home! She's in the middle of trying to move though, and she feels like her life is too chaotic right now to try to quit smoking. So we're just going to give her moral support for a little bit. She's having a hard time finding a new place to move to though, and Sister Aeschbacher and I are pretty sure it's because she's supposed to stay in Manchester until she gets baptized! She is so close! But we don't know what else to do to help her. So we're trying to figure that one out.

Another cool story - we were walking to an appointment on Tuesday and we stopped to talk to a lady who was outside her house watering her lawn. We talked for a few minutes and we found out that she had been at a friend's house a couple days before. This friend happens to be a less-active member, and she has a DVD of the Restoration video. This lady we met, Louise, asked if they could watch it. They did, she had some questions, and we happened to stop by two days later. We're going to go teach her tonight.

God works in mysterious ways.

Another fun fact - we're making friends with the local Jehovah's Witnesses. Well, only one of them really. Her name is Jessica. She was out doing her proselyting while we were walking around. We had a good 10 minute chat. I even got her to promise to look up Mormon.org. She's driven past us a few times since then and will always honk and wave. Nice girl.

That's pretty much my week. Lots and lots of fun! Nothing too exciting though. Just out and about, doing missionary work. The usual.

I attached two photos to the e-mail this week. One is of Sister Aeschbacher and I at the Zone conference two weeks ago. The other is the view from Betty Butler's apartment. She lives on the 11th floor of one of the few high rises in Manchester. We visit her almost every Sunday. Sometimes the sunset is really pretty and I can't help myself. So sue me.

Well, that's it for the e-mail this week kids. Stay tuned for next week :) Love you all!

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg