Trick or treat - wanna learn about Jesus?

Dear Everyone:

We started teaching a new guy this week, Anthony. He's actually not that new - the Elders have been teaching him for a couple months. But, it got to the point where it was almost impossible for them to actually teach him anything, because he just viewed them as friends and would just tell them about all of his problems every time they went over. So they dropped him. But, he's really good friends with a ward member, who wasn't willing to give up on Anthony yet. So now we're teaching him twice a week at the ward member's home. It's awesome. Anthony is so prepared - he is totally willing to do whatever it takes to help him get closer to God.

On Saturday we did a service project at Troy and Kathy's house. He's got a really bad back and she works a lot, so they had a lot of stuff around the house that had been kind of neglected. We helped stack wood and we helped build a stone wall around his trees. We also helped another family in the ward rake their leaves again this week. I'm practically a true Vermonter now.

Saturday was the ward Trunk or Treat. It was like almost every other ward activity - chaos. It was lots of fun though, and there were tons of people there, active member, less-active member, and non-member alike. Sister Frampton and I were on a budget, so for our costumes we just switched name tags and confused everyone who didn't know us very well.

For Halloween this week the mission rule is that we all need to be in our apartments by dark - or 5:00 here. Probably because if we were trying to tract on Halloween we'd mostly just end up with lots of candy and not very many return appointments. So instead of getting free sweets, we get to spend all evening deep cleaning our apartment! I love missions!

This week was kinda slow. We're starting to run out of ideas on how to find new people - it's getting colder so people aren't out in the streets as much anymore and it gets dark earlier, so people aren't as willing to let us in in the evenings. So we're struggling a bit. But it'll get better. We can feel it!

I love you all. Slip a couple mormon.org cards in someone's goodie bag this Halloween. Eternal salvation is a much better treat than a Snickers or Kit-Kat. Seriously.

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg

The odds are ever in my favor.

Dear Everyone:

So last weekend was the Reaping. Or, in other words, transfer calls.

Luckily, Sister Frampton and I are staying together another transfer in Montpelier! Yes! We're stoked!

This week was a good one though. We just started teaching a less-active couple, Troy and Kathy. They are my favorite. Troy looks like ZZ Top, and has Kathy's name tattooed on his arm. Kathy has a pink mullet. They're the nicest people ever. Fun story about why we're teaching them again though:

Kathy has had a strong testimony of the Gospel ever since she was baptized 12 years ago. She just doesn't come to church because she usually works on Sundays and Troy decided to stop going. Troy stopped going because he felt like he didn't know enough, and hasn't really been interested in learning for a while.

Troy works as a night janitor at Norwich, the college in our our area. There'a a member of our ward who works as a professor at Norwich. This member was challenged a few months ago to place a Book of Mormon on his desk as a missionary opportunity. He had it there for about a month, yet no one said anything, so he took it off. Little did this member know though, Troy, who cleans his office, had seen it. And noticed it. And wanted to talk to him about it. But, despite being pretty intimidiating himself, Troy was scared to bring it up.

Fast forward to the week before General Conference. Troy finally mustered up the courage to talk to the member about it, and this member invited him to Priesthood Session. Troy loved it and so we set up an appointment and went and started teaching him and Kathy again!

Member missionary work is the best!

This week was also interesting though, in several ways. One of which is finding out how awkward it is to teach the Law of Chastity to a single man, right after he introduces you to his girlfriend that you didn't know he was dating. That was a fun one. Luckily, it went over well though, and he's still moving forward :)

Life is good though. Missionary work is great. We're working on finding lots of people to teach and helping the ward as much as we can. The ward members here in Montpelier are amazing. They're trying so hard to share the Gospel, they're making it easy for us! 

But, I'm about out of e-mail time. Thanks so much to those who have already sent me their missionary experiences, you guys are great! Hopefully I'll continue to receive more next week!

Love you all!

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg

P.S. The picture this week is of our district at district lunch. Obviously, us Sisters get along well. The Elders are a little more awkward.

When you rake leaves it sounds like the ocean.

Dear Everyone:

This week was a strange one. I'm not completely sure why. It was just off. But it was still pretty good.

We raked leaves this week! You can't serve a mission in New England and not rake leaves for service at least once.

Hopefully I'll only have to do it once.

Just kidding. It really wasn't that bad. It was actually pretty fun. It just took a long time. And there were a lot of leaves.

We saw Jeremy this week and talked about General Conference. He was able to go to the chapel and watch one of the sessions, so we were really interested to see what he thought about it. Luckily for us, Jeremy is awesome. He said "I wanted to really know if these people were called of God or not. So I prayed about it before I went, while I was there, and after I left. And I felt really good. I'm pretty sure they are called of God."

I love missionary work.

Unfortunately, smoking is a hard habit to break. So Jeremy still doesn't have a set baptismal date. But he said he'd pray about one this week, so that he'll have something concrete to work towards. I'm so stoked about it.

Speaking of being stoked, President and Sister Stoker spoke at our Stake Conference yesterday!

It was awesome. They talked all about how to be member missionaries. Our mission recently came up with this sweet list: 82 ways to do Member Missionary Work.

We're going to start incorporating that into our interactions with members. A lot of the people out here want to share the Gospel. They just have no idea how.

And I can't blame them. I have a name tag and most of the time I have no idea how to share the Gospel either.

But that's what this list is for. To help give some specific, practical ideas.

However, we think 82 is a weird number, and Sister Frampton and I are working on compiling more to make it an even 100. So I'm expecting participation here - if you read these letters and you've had any awesome missionary experiences, send them to me! Send me the ways you share the Gospel with people! Even if you don't think it's awesome, if you've done it, share it!

lindsey.berg@myldsmail.net

K thanks. You guys are the best, so I'm expecting millions of e-mails next week.

That's all I've got for this week folks. Life is going good. Transfers are next week and Sister Frampton and I are crossing our fingers that we'll stay together another transfer. We'll see what happens.

Love you all! Do work! Especially of the missionary kind.

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg

The most wonderful time of the year!

Dear Everyone:

I love General Conference! No joke, it's more exciting than Christmas for missionaries!

Of course, I haven't been on a mission during Christmas yet, so I can't say for sure.

But still. What's more exciting than listening to modern-day prophets and apostles tell you revelation from the Lord meant specifically for US?

Nothing. That's the answer. Nothing.

Seriously though. General Conference was so great. I loved it. President Monson is amazing.

Other than that, this week wasn't too extraordinary. We had Zone Interviews last Wednesday, which were great. President and Sister Stoker are so awesome. We were talking to Sister Stoker about eating healthy. She went on a little bit of a rant about how the Elders don't take care of themselves and eat nothing but frozen pizza and mac & cheese.

Sister Frampton and I just looked at each other, because we had had frozen pizza for lunch the day before and brought mac & cheese with us for lunch at Interviews.

If I'm gonna get chubby, I might as well serve a mission and get chubby for the Lord. So no worries.

Jeremy was able to come to the Sunday morning session of conference. He really enjoyed it and he's doing really well. Still no set baptism date, but he's continuing to progress and move forward. We were sitting a couple rows behind him at General Conference (because we were watching it at the Chapel) and at one point one of the speakers brought up 2 Nephi 31. We had talked about that chapter this last week with Jeremy when we taught him. When the speaker brought it up Jeremy turned around and looked at us, pointed to the screen and gave us a big thumbs up. Apparently, he remembered that we had talked about it as well. He's so great!

Other than that we've just been working on finding more people to teach. We've been working with a few less actives but we've also had to drop a few people. One thing that really amazes me is actually something they talked about in Conference - how people can have a strong testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel, yet not truly be converted to it enough to live it.

I just feel like they go hand in hand. It's like knowing the way you have to go to get home, yet choosing not to go that way.

Actually it is exactly that. When you have a testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel, you know that it is the only way that you can go to return to our Heavenly Father someday. Yet if you choose not to live it, it's like you're purposely going in the opposite direction. Which makes no sense.

I just don't understand people.

So we're working on finding those who are looking for the way back home. Hopefully we'll find some soon. We're certainly trying!

Well, I love you all. If you didn't have the chance to listen to conference, go to lds.org and listen to it there! Heck, go and listen to it again! It's that good!

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg