Sorry I'm so boring - although I do write raps.

Dear Everyone:

Not a ton to report this week. Teaching has been pretty slow lately.

Kellie is currently in the hospital for some issues. She no longer has a baptism date and we're pretty positive we're going to drop her soon because of various reasons that I'd rather not talk about on the internet. She's just not emotionally stable enough to make a commitment like baptism.It's a bummer, but it'll be better for all of us. We're here to teach the gospel to people, and we can't spend time teaching people if they aren't willing to make those changes that will eventually bring them closer to Christ.

We did meet a lot of people this week though. No new investigators yet, but a few of those contacts have some real potential. I feel like we're going to get really busy really soon. There's people out there who are ready and waiting for the gospel. We just need to find them.

One fun thing from this week though. Sister Frampton and I decided that we need to be prepared for every situation. So, as we were walking around downtown Montpelier trying to contact less actives, we wrote a rap for the 1st vision. Not gonna lie, it's pretty sweet.

Think Fresh Prince of Bel-Air:

In upstate New York Joseph was confused,

Studyin' different religions, wonderin' what he should do,

Readin' and ponderin', askin' sincere,

Tryin' to find the purpose of why he was here.

When a couple of guys, the Father and the Son,

Appeared to young Joseph, shared what had to be done!

He translated one little book that would change the nations,

It's our guide back to God and eternal salvation.

What up!

Don't worry. We're working on verse two (Plan of Salvation) and verse three (Gospel of Jesus Christ). It'll be wicked awesome.

This week was a slow one. It happens. Life is good though. Just being a missionary. The usual.

I love you all!

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg

A pep talk in every drop.

Dear Everyone:

So this week was full of highs and lows.
Low: Getting sick. You know how your parents always told you not to go
outside with wet hair/wet shoes and you never took them seriously
because it sounded like something they just made up to ruin your life
and annoy you because that's what parents do? Well it's true.
Wednesday we spend all day walking around Montpelier in the pouring
rain. So our shoes and socks were soaked and cold. Then Thursday
morning Sister Frampton and I both woke up with sore throats and it
went all downhill from there.
High: Dayquil and Nyquil. Not ON dayquil and nyquil. Just the fact
that they exist is a miracle. I'm being completely serious.
Also, Hall's cough drops are really inspirational. They tell you
encouraging things on every wrapper, like "Impress yourself today,"
"Don't give up," "Conquer today," and "Don't wait to get started."
It's really motivating.
Low: Kellie might be moving to Burlington, which isn't in our area.
She found out on Saturday that the Barre shelter is under construction
for the next couple months. She can move to the Burlington one, but
she doesn't want to. Right now she's living with a member in our ward,
but she can only live there for another week or two and she's not sure
she can find her own apartment by then.
High: The members here are great! We're really starting to work with
members. President Stoker told us to get to know all the members as
well as we can. We stopped by 6 different member families yesterday
and they all love us. It was great.

This week wasn't too exciting. Just teaching people about Jesus. It's
pretty great.
Fun story: The elders are teaching this guy, James, who works at
Pricechopper, which is where we do our grocery shopping on Mondays. We
saw him last week, but didn't say anything. When we told the elders
about it later, they chastised us for not going up and talking to him.
We told them it was because we didn't want James to see how awesome we
were and want us to teach him instead.
Then a couple days later the elders taught James. And he told them he
saw us at Pricechopper. Then he asked how he could meet with us, and
if there were rules on who he had to be taught by.
Sisters:1
Elders: 0

The work is going good. We're just working on getting to know as many
people in the ward that we can. Vermont is great. Being a missionary
is great. The Gospel is great.

That's all for this week kids. Stay tuned!

Love,
Sister Lindsey Berg

I know it's green, but what else is about it?

Hey all!

Sorry I'm a day late. We had Zone Conference yesterday, so we're taking P-Day today instead. Hopefully I didn't mess up anyone's week by not e-mailing yesterday :)

This week was crazy. Chaotic. I'm still not completely sure what happened.

The big news? Kellie has moved out of her apartment! The bad part however, is that it wasn't really of her own free will. She got home one night, and her roommate wasn't in a very good mood (that'll happen when you drink 8 beers), and he decided he didn't want her living there anymore. So he decided to remove her. In a not very nice way.

As a side note, we're well acquainted with the cops here in Northfield.

So, to make a long story short, Kellie's roommate was arrested Tuesday night. She was out of the apartment Thursday and moved in with a girl she met at the gas station. Then on Sunday we had to help her move out of that girl's apartment into the apartment of a girl in our ward. She's staying there for a week, then there's a good chance she'll be moving into a shelter until she can find her own apartment.

Like I said, crazy week. We're still planning on her baptism on October 12th though! And she still came to church on Sunday! It was great!

Another fun thing from this week. We went to the JSM Friday afternoon! We took Heather, a less-active that we're working with. She was baptized at 8, but went less-active shortly afterwards. So knowledge-about-the-gospel-wise, she's essentially a non-member. It was great though, we were able to go and learn all about the early life of Joseph Smith! And the memorial is beautiful. It was actually kind of awesome - it was rainy and cloudy and miserable all day.  But then like 30 minutes before we left it stopped raining. And by the time we were at the memorial about an hour later, it was sunny and warm and beautiful! So great!

Our Zone Conference yesterday was amazing though! President Stoker runs the mission in a lot more business-type way than President Wilkey did. Which I actually really like. President Wilkey was very inspirational and loving and I always felt the Spirit so strong whenever I met with him. But I'd leave meetings all fired up and excited to be an amazing missionary, and then not have any idea how to do it. So I'm stoked about the direction the mission is heading in. We were told essentially that we should try to avoid tracting as much as possible - music to my ears! We're starting to work with members a lot more - getting to know them, serving them, building them up. That way they'll be more confident in introducing their friends and families to us for us to teach, because they'll know that their loved ones are in the hands of two awesome missionaries, aka Sister Frampton and I.

It'll be great.

Well kids, that's all for this week. Vermont is small-town, expensive, and green. I can't wait for the leaves to start changing colors, it'll be gorgeous! The scriptures are great. Share the gospel with everyone you meet. It's a beautiful thing, so give others the opportunity to learn about it too!

Love you all!

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg

Doing work in the 802

Dear Everyone:

So guess what. I'm in Vermont!

Montpelier, Vermont to be exact. And I love it.

They have MOUNTAINS here. Well sort of. Nothing like back home, but there's a lot more up and down. Everything is covered in green trees though. And it's a lot more rural. We cover several towns and it takes like a half hour to get anywhere. We drive on dirt road almost every day. I love it.

My companion is Sister Frampton from Payson, Utah. She's only been out one transfer, so I'm back training her. She is my absolute favorite though. It's like we're the same person. We haven't been the best at going to bed on time this week, because we always get distracted and end up telling stories and jokes until like 10:25. So we're working on that. But she's sarcastic and chill and gets all my random youtube references. It's great. I've laughed more with her this last week than I have my entire mission so far. I love it. Plus, she shares her M&Ms with me. Winner.

The work here is a lot different than it was in either Bedford or Augusta. There are about 500 members on the ward list here. Only about 120 show up somewhat regularly. So we're doing a lot of work with less-actives. We're also doing a lot of searching out, trying to figure out if addresses are even correct or not. There are some people who have been on the ward roster for 20+ years and have never shown up once during that time. There have been a lot of people who've died/moved, so there's no reason for them to still be in our records. So we spend our time trying to clear out those names.

I'm living in a smaller town called Northfield. There's a small university here, Norwich. It's half military, half civilian. They aren't really doing much right now, but apparently the new cadets should show up at the end of August and we tend to be teaching quite a few people from the school every year. That'll be fun because right now we spend most of our time in the other towns in our area - Northfield is kind of dead.

We have one great investigator though. Kellie. She lives in our apartment building. Apparently Kellie came up to Sister Frampton her first day on the mission and asked if they (Sister Frampton and Sister Robbins) were from a church. Kellie lost her husband to cancer in January and has been kind of lost and searching for direction since then. She had a baptism date for the end of July, but her roommate is a man. And until she moves out, she can't get baptized. Law of Chastity ya know.

So we decided yesterday that we were all going to fast and pray for a date together. And we came up with October 12th! I didn't know this, but Sister Frampton and Sister Robbins had been praying for a baptism date before transfers. They had picked October 12th. But Sister Frampton didn't tell me, because she wanted to see what date I would come up with. So I guess it's meant to be! Kellie is stoked. Now we just need to work on getting her her own apartment so that she can actually get baptized. 

Vermont is different. It's small town and rural and kind of ghetto. The Elders live in a town that is affectionately referred to as 'Scary Barre'. It's cool.

Speaking of Elders, I don't understand why people in the ward keep telling us when they think the Elders are cute. It's not awkward at all. But I've had at least 2 people in every ward that I've served in tell me how cute the Elders in our area are. It's a little weird.

Anyway, life is good. I'm loving Vermont. We're only about 45 minutes from the Joseph Smith Memorial so we're hoping we'll be able to go up there sometime soon. It was a bummer to leave Augusta, because I was finally figuring out where everything was. And now I'm still lost and confused. And windshield GPS devices are apparently illegal in Vermont. But I'm driving a Subaru, which is fun. And Sister Frampton is a pretty good co-pilot. So we're figuring it out.

That's the update for this week. Everything's going pretty good. Not much to complain about. I'll attach some pictures next week.

Read the scriptures. They're great.

Love you all :)

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg