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

I'm 21?

Dear Everyone:

I'm another year older! Not sure about the wiser part. Pretty sure I still feel like I'm 17. But whatever.

This week was great though! Jeremy committed to baptism! His date was October 19th, but for various reasons he won't be able to be baptized then. So we're gonna have to figure out a different date. But still, he wants to be batized!

It's so great! Jeremy is awesome. I guess he had a couple people tell him to be careful, because Mormonism is a cult, we don't believe in Christ, and we're all polygamists (all of which, in case you didn't know, is false. If you have any other questions, feel free to watch this great video! Even if you knew those were false, feel free to watch the video anyway, because it's awesome!). But Jeremy told them what's up! He said "I don't think so. I'm pretty sure it's true. So I'm gonna follow it. Because it's true."

I love it. Being a missionary is great.

We also went on exchanges this weekend. When I got back to the apartment on Saturday night, my amazing companion had decorated it all to surprise me! Isn't she great?

Saturday night was also the General Relief Society Broadcast as well, and it was great as usual! Before the broadcast our Relief Society had an activity, where we all had milk and cookies and a little bit of extra spiritual enlightenment! Sister Frampton and I taught the ladies in the ward a little bit about how to use Preach My Gospel in your own personal, and how it can apply to everyone's life - not just missionaries!

Wondering how you too can use this awesome tool? Here's a brief summary of what we taught Saturday:

There's a lot of great chapters in Preach my Gospel for all different questions, needs, and desires. But we focused on Chapter 6. How do I develop Christlike attributes? The attributes are Faith, Charity, Hope, Love, Virture, Knowledge, Humility, Patience, Diligence, and Obedience - all things that everyone continually needs to work on! There's a really cool activity at the end of the chapter that asks questions in each category. You rate how you're doing with each question on a scale of 1-5. Then, you see how you score. That helps give you an idea of which attribute you could study! Or, you could just pick one that you know you struggle with! But don't spend the next 4 months studying patience. Everyone always needs more patience, but we're supposed to strive to be well-rounded individuals. Add in some variety.

That was pretty much the just of what we went over. We went more in depth, actually studying one of the attributes, but I'll leave that up to you guys to actually do. My e-mail time is limited, after all. There's some suggestions as to how you can study the sections at the end of the chapter as well. So check it out!

So ya. That was the week pretty much. Vermont is great. The leaves are beautiful! I tried to take some pictures, but cameras just don't do it justice. Sorry.

Love you all!

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg

Autumn

Dear Everyone:

Fall is in the air! It's cold! The leaves are changing colors! It's gorgeous!

But back to missionary work.

Jeremy came to church yesterday! We weren't able to talk to him a whole lot afterwards, but I'm pretty sure he enjoyed it. We have a lesson with him tomorrow, so we'll be able to talk more about what he thought then.

So we have a college in our area - Norwich. It's a private military college. Fun fact, we were told that it's also one of the top 5 most haunted college campuses in the US. Not sure if it's true or not, but it is kind of creepy.

Anyway. We're doing the New Testament/Life of Christ for institute this year. So Sister Frampton and I decided that we're going to start spending a few hours each week inviting people to institute! Because even if they aren't LDS, everyone could learn a little more about Christ! Hopefully we'll see some success from it.

We also were able to go and visit a lot of less-actives this week. It's sometimes really frustrating, the reasons people give for not being active anymore. Sometimes I really just don't know how to help people who refuse to see the hand of God in their lives.

Side note, have you seen this video? I think it's a pretty good one. A little cheesy, but good. Watch it!

Shout out to my mom, Aunt Audrey and Uncle Alan, Aunt Madilyn, and Angie, Abi and Paige for the awesome birthday presents! I have the best family ever.

So that's all for this week! Stay warm, drink some apple cider, and enjoy fall while it lasts!

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg

Ice cream and La-Z-boys.

Dear Everyone:

This week was a good one! It started out with free ice cream at the Ben and Jerry's factory and ended with ripping apart an armchair.

Missionary work is great.

So Jeremy is doing great! We taught him twice this week. He's really progressing well. He was supposed to come to church yesterday, but was really sick so he couldn't. He's already read almost half of the Book of Mormon though, and we've only taught him three times. He's awesome! It takes us a long time to get through the lessons because he asks so many questions. But it's so much fun, because you can tell how sincerely he wants to know and understand what we're teaching him. And his questions are really interesting too. They really make me think about what we're teaching him, which is good, because no one likes being taught by a robot. He's so golden though, and I really really hope he keeps progressing like this!

Other than that we've been really working to get to know the members here. We're really starting to develop good relationships with some families and people are really willing to come out teaching with us. Now our challenge is to find people to teach so that they can come teaching with us!

That's why we were ripping apart an armchair. We're supposed to be doing 8 hours of service a week and sometimes that includes helping new families paint their house and re-upholster second hand La-Z-boys.

That's all I can really think of to report for this week though. Just doing missionary work all day ery day!

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg