The Work of Salvation

Dear Everyone:

So I was a little wrong. I'm not in Vermont. I'm actually in Maine. Augusta, Maine. Funny story: my companion, Sister Cloward, came out the transfer after me. Her trainer was Sister Buxton. Sister Buxton, if you remember, was my trainer. So in missionary terms, Sister Cloward and I are actually sisters, because Sister Buxton was our mom. It's pretty fun, we get along great. She's from Mesa, Arizona, and she went to BYU for 5 semesters before her mission. We like to joke that we're kind of the same person. We are so similar in so many ways that it gets a little weird at times. But it's wicked awesome.

Sister Cloward is kind of a hipster though. Which is great. Especially when she dresses like a hipster version of Snow White. And everyone on church comments on it. I had to take a picture to share with you all. Enjoy.

Augusta is a lot different than Bedford was though. Augusta is the capital of Maine, but from what I've seen so far, it's not a very large city. It's barely a city at all. It's kind of like Provo. Manchester was definitely more cityish. But I'm liking Augusta. The ward here isn't very big, but our bishop, Bishop Dawbin, is so missionary minded! It's so great to know that we have the ward's help and support.

Speaking of help and support from the ward, I really really hope that each and every one of you went to the World Wide Leadership broadcast last night! Wasn't it amazing?? You guys. Missionary work really isn't that hard to do every day. You just tell people how awesome the Gospel is and invite them to learn more. It's simple! Leave all the really heavy lifting to us full-time missionaries. It's what we're supposed to do anyway.

Something else that's happening this week: I'm getting a new mission president! It's both really exciting and really sad. I love President and Sister Wilkey so much already! I can't believe that they're leaving! But President and Sister Stoker should be great. Sister Cloward knows them actually, they're from her home stake. It'll be very, very different. But different can be good.

We work with two Elders in our area - Elder Nielson, who has been out for about 6 months, and Elder Flake, who just barely came out last week. They're great missionaries, and lots of fun to work with. We're working on coming up with a family mission plan to share with everyone in the ward. We're gonna set Augusta on fire with missionary work, it's gonna be amazing!

It's been hard, adjusting to a new area. It's hard to plan what to teach people when you know absolutely nothing about them. And this area is a lot different than Bedford - when I got to Bedford we were already pretty well established and had a good base of people to teach. Here in Augusta we have about 3 people we're teaching. Sister Buxton and Sister Cloward just opened this area last transfer, so it's still very new. We're working hard though, doing our best. That's all that we're asked to do, right?

Love you all!

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg