9 month mark!

making valentines:)

Still in Eau Claire!

Hey hey hey! Happy Valentines! I really missed you all on the 14th.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO BUZZ! I was thinking about him all day yesterday and really was bummed to miss out on his Patriarchal Blessing. How was that? I am so so sooo proud of him! Hope he had a good 17:) What a handsome boy. And CONGRATS to Uncle Ben!!! Stake President?! Wow, that's really amazing. Tell him I love him and congrats! 

Friday, the Cottage Grove Sisters came to blitz our area. So, Sister Ballif and I were companions for the day! I could take up soooo much time telling you about how amazing the exchange was. We had so many miracles, so many wonderful conversations, and so much success. I'll try to keep it brief. 

The moment Sister Ballif and I got together, we went to tract college housing, and 3 houses in a row, we taught 3 awesome Restoration lessons. My favorite part about teaching Restoration lessons is seeing the change of countenance in the people we are talking with. It is always a pay day to see them understand something and for it to make total sense to them. (Wow, that makes me sound like a mom talking about my kids. haha) That happened a lot. We were able to get a ton of return appointments with people to fill our schedule this upcoming week. 

The coolest miracle we saw on the exchange was when we stopped by L and O (the only Nigerian couple I've seen in my five months in Eau Claire.) We've stopped by in the past, but were never able to get in. We'd make appointments, and they'd always fall through. So, this time when Sister Ballif and I knocked on the door, Sister Ballif immediately asked, "Hey, do you mind if I use your bathroom?" L let us in. I started talking to her a little bit, and then when Sister Ballif came back out, we asked if we'd be able to share a quick message with her. She agreed to it. We asked L what she remembers from meeting with the sisters a long time ago. She said, "I know about Joseph Smith, and I know about the Book of Mormon. I have been reading it everyday, even if it is a little passage." 

WHAT?!?!? I had absolutely no idea! She has been so faithful reading the Book of Mormon and told us she believes it is the word of God. She had questions like, "What happens to the people who don't even get a chance to hear about the Book of Mormon? I never heard about it in Nigeria... so that wouldn't be fair!" Luckily we answered that question briefly by talking about the Spirit World, but we are so excited teach her about the Plan of Salvation next week. How cool is THAT.
Not much time but please know
I am so grateful for the gift of the Atonement. I am so grateful for the chance we have to repent every single day, to progress in our growth of the gospel and improve each day.

x0x0x0 LOVE YOU
Sister Beeson

Good morning :)

Mom... I knew you were sick... I could feel it. It's super weird when I feel like something is 'off' at home. It must be my spiritual gift or something.... bahhhhh :)

Speaking of, E and S have been down with sickness, so we haven't been able to meet with them, but they rescheduled for tomorrow. :) So I'll let you know next week!

Well, I have a new companion: Sister Smith. From Duchane (sp?) UT!

But really, this week was cray cray. Monday and Tuesday Sister Anderson and I worked out little hiney's off, and said goodbye to people, Wednesday was transfers, we worked Thursday, then Friday we went back to Minnesota for Zone Conference. AH. I'm exhausted. We had an AWESOME Zone Conference... Topics about working with the ward members (specifically the ward council) to give them a 'F.U.N. Report' F=facts about investigator (spend 1 minute) U=understanding of the investigator (40 sec) N= needs of the investigator (1 min) and then we talked about repentance (AWESOME.)... look up the BD definition of it. It's so so so good. And then self esteem by Sister Clements. :) I loooooove Zone Conferences. Its fun to get together with the other missionaries.. It's always weird seeing Elder Tubbs (Zack) haha..

Well, I don't remember if I told you about our investigator M... a lonnnng while back, Sister Anderson and I were having probably one of the most discouraging days on my mission, we weren't finding many people to teach, and we had a media referral, giving us hope that this person would be somewhat interested. We later found out the address didn't exist. Cherry on top of our day. So, bugged, we walked out of our car into the negative whatever weather, and started tracting the college housing. First door we knocked on: M's. She is SOOO cute. We introduced ourselves, and immediately she said, 'Come in, come in! It's too cold!" Eventually, we taught her the Restoration, and after we recited Joseph Smith's First Vision, she looked at us and said, "Wow. I got the chills. How come I haven't heard of this?!" So, there's a little refresher... well, M has been SO hard to catch, she's one busy gal, but we were able to meet her last week, and during our lesson, she invited herself to church! So, yesterday we met up and she followed us over there. The ward was AWESOME. They all showed immediate love and welcomed her in sooo well. We told her she was more than welcome to stay for all 3 hours, or just the one, whatever she'd like to do. After Sacrament: 'I think I'll stay for another' End of Gospel Principles: 'I think I'll come to the next one!" she stayed ALL 3 HOURS AND LOVED IT!!!!! She said when she left, "Wow, this was NOTHING like I thought it was gonna be. I really really liked it. I was so overwhelmed by the friendliness. Could I come again next week?"

 AHHHHHHHHHHHH :) :) :) :) :)

It was awesome. We're gonna baptize everyone on campus. We really do need a strong singles ward. There's only 2 right now. :/

I love you all!!!

xoxox Sister B

I've been a HOT MESS this past week freaking out if I'm going to be transferred... Welllllllllll................................................... I'm not. :D :D :D I get to spend my 4th transfer (month 5) in lovely Eau Claire!!! Wahoooo! Sister Anderson is leaving to my first area--Shingle Creek! She's kind of nervous, this whole thing has come as a complete shock to us! Everybody in the ward and even Sister Anderson and I thought I was the one who'd be transferred. I'm gonna miss that girl!

We've had yet another great week, we were grounded for a couple of days, locked down again, and getting the sniffles a little... :/ part of the weather I suppose. 

Well, good things were happening. We picked up a former investigator. B and her daughter A, they are sooo solid as far as Gospel knowledge goes, but as far as keeping appointments, they're really hard to catch. Well, they ended up getting in a bad car accident, and have been in and out of the hospital all week :( so we haven't been able to see them.
 Then, on Wednesday, we went to mutual to invite some young women to an 'Iron Rod' activity we were gonna have the next day (which ended up being sooo awesome btw) and we had a chance to chat with the bishop that night who told us to visit a less active.

 The next day, we went and saw the L.A., and after our visit with her, we had about 20 minutes before our dinner appointment, so we decided to tract around her neighborhood. We drove down the street, and we saw two cute little Asian girls shoveling their driveway, and they waved to us... We decided we should turn around and see them. We parked a couple houses down from the Asian girls' house, and worked our way up to it by tracting her neighbors houses first... The second door we knocked on was awesomeeeeeee.
 A man named E answered, and we introduced ourselves, and he said: "Oh! You're Mormons? If I could choose to live next to anyone, it'd be a Mormon!" so far so good... he continues by saying:"We have some really good family friends who live in Utah, and we've visited there often, we tried to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but they were doing remodeling... but, we did go to Martin's Cove on that visit! I even pulled my wife in the handcart just to see what it'd be like...." WHAT THE HECK! We taught him a brief Restoration lesson, and he invited us back to talk more about our message so his wife could be there.

*Day 2*
 We went to E's, met his wife, S, and she was a doll. SO nice. They have three little boys and are wanting to get into church. We brought the PERFECT member with us, who was totally able to relate to Stacy. The spirit was very strong as we shared Joseph Smith's experience and testified that we knew it was true. S got emotional when we were talking about how we KNEW it was true. She'd say: "I SO know that feeling. You can't even describe it. It is a very real feeling." So everything was soooo awesome...
 they are a WONDERFUL family, and seem highly interested in the church!!! :)

 P and L  came to church yesterday and L got up and bore her testimony in Sacrament Meeting... and then P DID! Pwould always say to us: "I'm not gonna bear my testimony until I'm baptized, have it written on a piece of paper, and get a haircut." But she totally went up yesterday. It was awesome.

 After church, we had some lovely finding time, and we were nervous because the dang super bowl was on, so we were assuming no one wanted to listen to us. We went and knocked some college housing, and a guy had a house full of his buddies decked out for the Broncos, but he listened to our message, and when I asked him if I could offer a prayer before we left, he got all of his buddies and said, "Hey! This chick is gonna pray, you wanna join in?" and really all of them asked me to pray that the Bronco's would win... I did... and if I heard correctly, they got absolutely creamed, right?? Haha... Hopefully they won't hold that against us..

 Anyway, sorry this email is jumbo and scattered and probs boring. But I'm so grateful for all of you, and can you BELIEVE I'M HALF WAY DONE NEXT WEEK? OH MY HECK GROSS.

Keep on keepin on. <----hate that phrase. Love you all! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
 Sister Beeson!

Sounds like Claire had a great birthday!! (Did she get my birthday letter?) I CANNOT believe she is 15... and did dad take her driving in the van or bug? Because... I can't even drive the bug...sooo... bahhhhhhhhhhh....

You're all so awesome for being missionaries. I pray daily that you'll all search and have missionary opportunities brought to you, and it looks like it's happening! YAY! Keep giving me updates, I love 'em.

So, as I told dad, this week was ESPECIALLY wonderful. All Eliza needs is a little boost in her ego... sheesh... I'm such a punk, but really, those words of encouragement were really all I needed to get that faith in myself to work hard. AND WE ROCKED IT. We had so many miracles especially with less actives, and our numbers were significantly higher (even with the stress of preparing for our baptism) ... speaking of... it was so so wonderful. I'll send you pics! The moment after Sister H got brought back out of the water, she looked at the audience and said, "I'm one of you now!" She's such a cutie. It was a wonderful day. :)

Yesterday I spoke about charity in Sacrament Meeting. I decided to not write out everything word for word as I usually do in fear that I'll forget absolutely everything I'd want to say... but, I literally went up there with a couple bullet points on a paper with scriptures, and just spoke. It was nice! I cried a little when I talked about my experience with Sister Ballif taking our first steps onto Minnesota ground and feeling the absolute pure love of Christ for everybody in that airport-now.

Everyone in church was literally coming up to us saying: "DON'T GET TRANSFERRED! WE'RE PRAYING YOU WON'T!" Especially our bishop... Transfers are next week, and I'm really really nervous... I don't want to leave Eau Claire! This is soooo home for me. I adore it all.

I know I say it all the time, but I'm so glad to be a missionary! It's too great. I hope to become who I need to by the time I'm released as a missionary...ew... I don't even want to think about that... I LOVE YOU.

xoxox

Sister Beeson