Missionary work is exhausting.

Dear Everyone:

Meet my new companion - Sister Bateman! She's 23, is from Orem, Utah, and has been out for a year, as of next week. Sorry I don't have any pictures... eventually.

I actually already knew Sister Bateman. We were in the same district for 3 transfers while I was in Montpelier and she was in Burlington. So that's fun.

Other than that, I don't really have much to report this week. Our teaching pool is looking more like a puddle. Hopefully we'll add some depth to it soon. Today marks the official start of tourist season in Biddeford/Saco/Old Orchard Beach. Which means a lot more people will be out and about. Which is awesome news for us missionaries. 

You guys. I love being a missionary. Really, I do. It's great. I get to be there as we watch people's lives change through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I've seen people gain hope, find purpose, and just completely change their lives.

But being a missionary is exhausting. In every way imaginable. Seriously. That's one of the purposes of being a missionary though. It's not only to help others come unto Christ.

It's so that we can learn to depend on Him too.

And it's hard. Really really hard.

I read a scripture this week that just really screamed 'mission' to me. It was Alma, chapter 26, verse 27. In this verse it's a guy named Ammon talking. Now Ammon was a really great missionary. One of the best actually - he helped to convert an entire country. Not to mention a lot of other people as well. Ammon and his brothers just finished their missions and are kind of talking about the experience all together. Ammon is talking about how great his mission was, and about how blessed by the Lord he was throughout it all.

Now what does this have to do with me being exhausted?

Well, I'm positive Ammon was exhausted at points during his mission as well. If you read the scripture, Ammon said "Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us..." Even Ammon was depressed at times! Yet he was able to find strength in the Lord.

The scripture continues: "the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions and I will give unto you success."

Ammon only had to do two things in order to gain success: go out among the people, and be patient in his problems. As long as he did those two things, the Lord promises that he will have success.

And he did. Ammon had an insane amount of success - as did all of his brothers. Because they did exactly what the Lord said. They went out and worked, and were patient, trusting in His timing.

So that's what I'm doing right now. Trying to make more of an effort to go out and talk to people. Trying to make more of an effort to really trust the Lord, and trust His timing.

Although patience is still something I haven't really learned as well as I probably need to.

This is good council in everything though - not just missionary work. Heavenly Father gave us bodies, gave us the ability to act for a reason. If it is according to His will, He promises to help us. But only if we're going out and doing all we can first. He's not gonna help us if we sit in the apartment all day playing uno - as tempting as that is sometimes.

So, I'm exhausted. But it's worth it. Or at least it will be. Because I'm not alone in this. My Savior has my back.

That's my challenge to you all this week. Find something you've maybe been dragging your feet on. Or that you've been struggling with. Then go out and work on it. Trust in the Lord, and He'll help you with it. Just go and do it. Knowledge comes through experience. And it'll be worth it in the end. Promise.

I love you all!

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg

Cookie Monster

Dear Everyone:

I was right! Something changed! Sister Jackman is getting transferred, and I will be staying here in Saco!

I'm actually really stoked about staying. Part of me wanted to leave, go somewhere new, but I'm glad I'm staying at the same time.

You guys. I only have TWO transfers left. Crazy. So I really hope I stay here the rest of my mission. I feel like there's still so much more I can do here! So I'm super excited.

We did something really cool yesterday. There's a family in the ward here, the Tippetts. They're awesome. Every so often they'll make cookies for us missionaries to take to our investigators and people who we've been trying to contact. This time they decided to take cookies to ward members who are less-active, or who just need some extra love. There were a few other ward members who came with us, and we ended up delivering probably about 30 plates of cookies total. It was so great.

Sister Jackman and I went on splits with the Tippetts to deliver, so Sister Tippetts and I went to some people while Sister Jackman went with their daughter, Madi. Out of the 5 people we stopped by, 4 were home, and we had really good conversations with 3 of them - 2 of whom were less actives I had never met before. It was so great, and I'm excited to go see them again!

See the miracles that occur when members - aka, normal people - get involved?

Speaking of normal people, have you guys seen the I'm a Mormon videos? They're super cool videos, with all kinds of different people talking about how they came to gain a testimony of Christ and how it impacts and helps them in their life. They're really cool actually. I really like this one, this one, and this one.

So go watch them! They're only like 3 minutes long. You can do it!

Well, I love you all. I hope you've been reading your Book of Mormon everyday like I told you to. If you don't have one, go to mormon.org/free-book-of-mormon. Then you'll get a couple nice looking young kids like me who will happily deliver one to you. It really does bring happiness, I promise! I see it - and I feel it - everyday!

 

Love you!

 

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg

Climbin' in your windows... bringing happiness.

Dear Everyone:

This week was a good one, finishing off with me climbing through our neighbor's window last night to open her door after she locked herself out.

We're pretty serious when we say missionaries can help with anything. It even says so in the scriptures (check out verse 17).

Abby (our recent convert) had a good week. She came teaching with us, and taught her first lesson in Gospel Principles! Unfortunately, something came up and she wasn't able to go to the temple, but she'll be there next time.

Her lesson in Sunday school was on missionary work, ironically enough. During the lesson she was talking about how the greatest way we can share the Gospel with people is through our examples. She said, "It helped me when I first started learning, because the Sister Missionaries are the same age as me, and they're always so happy! There I was, out doing crazy, stupid things and I was miserable. And they aren't doing any of that stuff, and they're happy. So I wanted to be happy too!"

Definitely pulled on my heart strings a little with that comment. Missions are the best.

Seriously though, everyone loves being happy. Happiness is kind of the purpose of life, right? It's the one thing that everyone is constantly striving for, yet there seems to be no surefire way of how to find it - until now.
In 8 words, I can tell you how to find happines:

Sincerely read the Book of Mormon every day.

That's it. That's all you have to do.

The key, and the difficult part to that is the sincere part. If someone truly and sincerely reads the Book of Mormon, it will change their life. Why? Because it is the word of God! Because it helps bad men become good, and it makes good men better! Because, as one sincerely reads the Book of Mormon, it will cause "a change in [them], or in [their] hearts, that [they will] have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually" (Mosiah 5:2).

There's all kinds of examples in the scriptures showing how the Gospel changes lives! Enos, Alma the younger, King Lamoni, Paul, and so many more! Unfortunately, I have limited e-mail time.  Elder Bednar talks about the purpose of the gospel in a little more depth though, in this talk of his, 'In the Strength of the Lord'. It's a good one. Read it. That's how you find happiness.

Transfer calls are this Saturday. Sister Jackman and I have been together for 4 1/2 months. We're pretty sure something is going to change.
But then again, I've been wrong before.

Thanks all for this week kids. Love you all :)

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

Hola mi amigos!

I know, I know. I'm serving in New England, where there isn't really a booming Hispanic population. But hey, the fifth of May is world-wide, so I'm celebrating (and using my extremely limited Spanish vocabulary) while I can!

This week wasn't overly exciting. We went to see that potential from Subway, and she wasn't home for the appointment... bummer. Hopefully we'll be able to see her sometime this week.

We had dinner with one of our other investigators, Peggy, on Saturday. Our ward mission leader and his wife, Brother and Sister Smith came. They're really good friends with Peggy so we all went over. She had heard about the Easter message we were sharing, so although it was a bit late, we shared it anyway. And it was magnifico. The Spirit was so strong! It's never too late to share a message about Christ and His resurrection and how that impacts our lives every day! We were able to talk about all the different blessings we receive in our lives, through the Atonement of Christ - of which the resurrection was just the finale.

The Gospel is good stuff you guys. Muy bien!

Speaking of things that are muy bien - this week for district meeting, we had a green smoothie party. Sister Jackman's parents own a couple different smoothie stores, so she's pretty professional. She actually spoils me and makes me a smoothie every morning - full of all kinds of good stuff like kale and beets and celery. The Elders were talking about smoothies one day, so we decided to treat them and we made them all smoothies for lunch.

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Other than that, I don't really have a whole lot to report. Abby, our recent convert, just finished the Book of Mormon! And got called as a Gospel Principles teacher! And got her temple recommend to go to the temple with the ward this Saturday! 

She's on fire. I love her and am so excited for her!

Well amigos, that's all for this week. It's been a little slow, but overall, muy excelente.

I love you all! Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Amor,

Sister Lindsey Berg

P.S. It's been almost 5 years since I've taken a Spanish class. So no judgment.