A week full of liquid sunshine.

Dear Everyone:

This week was a wet one. It rained almost everyday. A Sister Carrier, a member we went teaching with, called it 'liquid sunshine', which I thought was pretty cool. Although it wasn't warm sunshine. It was actually really really cold. But there's sunshine today, so it should be improving.

This week was a busy one. I did my first exchange! I left Bedford and went and stayed in the small town of Sanbornton, which is in the Laconia area. The sisters there live above a member's garage. The members live on a farm. It was gorgeous! All you could see were green fields and miles and miles of green, rolling hills. Loved it. Not to mention, they run a pancake house that is to die for. I'll have to make everyone some Cranberry Orange or some Butterscotch Oatmeal pancakes when I get home. They're so good.

Now to the actual missionary work, rather than my (lack of a) diet.

The exchange was Tuesday to Thursday morning.  My companion for the day was Sister Bickel, who has been out one transfer longer than I have. She was pretty cool. Their area is still pretty new, so we only taught one lesson. Then we did lots of tracting. Sanbornton/Laconia is really rural though, so we actually did a lot of walking and only a little bit of knocking. It wasn't too bad though, and we found a few people who might be interested.

We had Zone Conference on Thursday. It was amazing. It was a little different than most Zone Conferences will be, because it was the last one for President and Sister Wilkey. They're leaving June 27th and the new mission president and his wife will be taking over. I honestly have no idea what it'll be like with the new president - the Wilkeys are so amazing I don't know how President Stoker will ever be able to measure up!

We talked all about repentance and how it's not a guilt driven process, it's changing for the better. We talked about bearing testimony through hymns. We talked about listening to and acting on the Spirit. We talked about a million more things that I don't have time to list. But it was an amazing meeting.

Then, after that, Sister Aeschbacher and I went to the Earnshaw's for dinner and a lesson with Kelly. First off - the Earnshaw's are a family in the ward here. Brother Earnshaw is our ward mission leader. They're the most amazing family ever. They've known Kelly since she first started taking lessons (about 2 years ago), so we thought it would be good to teach her there. And then the Wilkeys came to the lesson. I don't know how Kelly knows President and Sister Wilkey, but she knows them really well. I have to say, it is an amazing blessing to have the mission president and his wife there for a lesson, especially when the mission president and his wife are as spiritually in tune as the Wilkeys are. It was an amazing lesson. Kelly wants to get baptized so badly! She just has so many self-doubts that she struggles with actually going though with the decision. She had a baptismal date for last week, but she can't seem to kick smoking. That was what the lesson was for. It was an intervention of sorts. We had to make sure that Kelly was moving towards baptism because it was something that SHE wanted (and felt ready) to do, not because it was something that she knew we wanted her to do. Or not because she wanted to do it because the Wilkeys are leaving and she wants them there.

Unfortunately, I don't have a happy ending to report right now.

We gave Kelly a couple days to think about what she wanted to do. She wasn't at church on Sunday, and we haven't gotten a hold of her at all. But we're going to keep trying, and I know she won't blow us off forever. So I'll keep you all updated.

On a happier note, I thought I'd tell you about our (occasional) third companion.

Sister Carrier and her husband just got baptized about a month ago. She comes teaching with us two days a week now for a few hours at a time. She is amazing. It gives me a little bit of hope, seeing how much she loves the Gospel right now and how on fire she is with the Spirit. Keeps me working towards helping our stagnant investigators to feel that as well. We saw her last night and it was so great talking to her and her husband about their goal to go to the Temple in a year and how excited she is for it.

The Church is true!

Another fun thing from this week. I ate dinner at the Spencer's yesterday. It was nice to talk to people from home, and really funny too. They all struggled calling me Sister Berg, so for the first time in 2 1/2 months I was Lindsey again. It was fun though. Not to mention that Sister Spencer made Café Rio. So it was almost like I was at home again!

Well guys, I'm not sure what else to share from this week. It was a good one, we taught a good amount of lessons. We just don't have very many people who are really progressing, so we're trying to figure out how to help them with that.

But that's all. Just doing missionary work, all day everyday. The usual.

I love each and every one of you! Enjoy the sunshine!

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg