November 17th Letter

We filled al those bags with leaves!

comfy

Sweet beach cruiser Praying

Good times with the APs

Gulbrandsen, Tompkinson and me

Life is great here. The weather has actually been pretty nice here. It hasn't been freezing for quite awhile. SO that's good. I haven't needed to wear a jacket yet really so that's nice. And WOW, this last Friday Elder Scott came up to reorganize some stake leadership and it was amazing. There were A LOT of people there for the fireside he held and it was a big Q&A thing. At the end he testified of his apostolic call and everything. It was POWERFUL!!!! So the other night we had dinner at someones house and they noticed that i have holes in my socks. (15 months of hardcore wear and they are just barely getting holes, God Bless Golden Toe socks!) so they bought me and my companions socks! SO nice of them, hahaha. it was sweet. SO a guy in our zone, Elder Miller, hurt his knee and has been on crutches. This guy in the library just prayed for his knee and it was somewhat awkward. haha but good times! we got some good kicks out of that. SO i took a video of what a church tour is, but i forgot my camera, so I'll give you a quick rundown, we start in the lobby with a prayer and we teach God is our loving heavenly father and the gospel blesses families. Then we move onto a room that is dark where 4 pictures of ancient prophets are set up. Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses. We teach about dispensations vs apostasy with a flashlight representing the light of the gospel being on the earth. Then we move to another room, which is full of pictures of Christ and music playing where we talk about the Saviors earthly ministry and atonement and how he set up his church. Then we walk down the dark hallway towards the chapel talking about the Great apostasy. Then, into the chapel were we watch a video on the Restoration and talk about that and the Book of Mormon. Its amazing, and spirit filled. Its thought this that we gave one of our investigators a baptismal date she is currently praying about! I'll take you guys on one when i come home! Nothing too crazy is going on, but i love you all!

Elder crippen

November 10th Letter

I'm GREAT. We had an awesome Sunday where We had three investigators coming to church and it was flat out awesome. We taught the gospel principles class and it went really well. We taught about scriptures and I talked about Christ and the Bible and bore my testimony along with that of Elder Hollands from Apr conference and went off on that tangent. I didn't know why but looking around the room as i was teaching i knew. There were people in the class that needed to hear that. It made me feel really good to have the Spirit help me out there. It was just such a great day because one of the people that came to church was a sweet friend of a less active girl i have known forever in Mckenzie ward and the ward did SUCH a good job befriending them. Its really an awesome ward. They've been great to us. We're continuing to do church tours and they are awesome. Everyone loves them so we're hoping that people will start bringing their friends to them so we can teach them! We have another missionary with us, Elder Gulbrandsen, who just came back out from having knee surgery. He is hilarious and is such a good teacher. He was trained by my favorite comp, Elder Pehrson, so naturally he's cool. We're all having a lot of fun and work is getting done. Life is good. I love you!

November 4th Letter

Calgary south zone is a box of crayons!

On Halloween, our investigator, Lana, her friendshipper Carla, and their friend came and trick or treated at our house. Notice Lana's costume.

Yeah, she's that solid

Some silly chair

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Hey hey! How's life going? What are you guys doing in San Francisco! Does the party ever stop? Mennifee stake is the biggest in the state? geographically or number...ly? I can't believe that Levi is HOME! That is SO crazy! For the stake Halloween party we got the whole zone to be a box of crayons! We got different colored shirts and spray painted Crayola on them, then wore colored party hats. IT was pretty sweet. We got a lot of compliments. SO yesterday i finished the Book of Mormon, and it was sweet. I prayed about it and had an answer much like the one mentioned in Alma 32:28. It was awesome. Oh, before i forget, could you ask Brian Kinney to send me another copy of that testimony dinner message? The one he gave me is all worn out. And what reception are you talking about having at our house? We have ZLC in a couple days and me and my comp are gonna shake it up hardcore. WE do these things every month called zone game plans and they are supposed to help you focus on something that your zone needs to or whatever. And lately its become more of a competition between zone leaders as to who can get the most creative name, picture, etc for it. So we were trying to talk with the zone about what we should do and after an hour and a half of debating we got nowhere. SO we're gonna do what our leadership handbook says and make independent game plans per companionship. Yeah man, that's what I'm talkin about.
I'm excited for that, oh, and we'll be emailing next Tuesday because of remembrance day. I love you all and hope you're doing great! Love you!

Elder Crippen

October 28th Letter

Thanks for the nice email! i loved it. Life is way good this week. Lana met with the mission president Monday night so he could tell her the situation and that she couldn't get baptized because she's Israeli. She was sad to hear that and kind of shocked but it was so much fun to watch this resolve come over her to do what is right. She's not slowing down at all. Its going to be a wonderful day when she can get baptized. I told her that no matter when or where it happens I'll be there. I said I'd even postpone my wedding. She's awesome and is SO converted.
This week I've really seen the importance of testifying. We went in to a member's home and they randomly asked us to teach a lesson. I didn't feel all to prepared for it but i focused on testifying and making sure that the Spirit was there and it went great. And last night i was feeling really down about things so i asked tomps for a blessing and it was amazing. Long too. It calmed a lot of things that i was worried about and also strengthened me.
You guys should send my Uke up. That'd be great. There's some other missionaries here i want to jam with, and it'd give me something fun to do on down time. I'm doing great, and i love you all!