January 3, 2007

Hello everyone!
I hope you all had a great Christmas and have begun this new year on the right foot. It feels like forever since I've written. Turns out I could have emailed on another day since our preparation day was on Christmas, which I should've done. Now I'm missing a whole week of update. I'll probably forget what even happened that week…

As I mentioned last time, I'm in a new area—Sylvania. That is as far northwest as our mission goes. I'm up to the Michigan stateline. I cover some of Toledo as well so it's a lot more city than Ravenna was. There are actually stores in my area. I have now served in every major area in the mission—Cleveland, Akron and now Toledo. My companion is Sister Peterson who was serving around me when I was by Cleveland. We went on exchanges once before. It's been pretty good so far.

The first night I was here the Ward Mission Leader asked if one of us would like to speak in Sacrament Meeting. I thought that'd be fun and then I could get to know the ward and gain their trust right off the bat. I spoke about a defining point in my mission which I chose as the importance of members in missionary work. It went well. I shared a few of my favorite quotes by some of the former prophets about how the work is more successful when members are a part of the finding process. I am on a quest to help a ward get excited about sharing the gospel so that the full-time missionaries are assisting the members in the work, rather than the members assisting the missionaries. I think there's a lot of potential in this ward. They have lost 17 active families in the last year and are really struggling for people to keep the ward running.

I really don't know a whole lot of our investigators here. They apparently haven't been home and don't want to answer their phone ever since I've gotten here. The ones I've read about have been investigating for a long time and make stop and go progress. We're going to be really upfront and see where their interest it.

There were 2 new families that were baptized in the last few months—the Mitten-Wells, and the Gerries who I have at least met. One of the Mitten-Wells daughters keeps going back and forth about wanting to be baptized. She 11 I think. She loves coming to church and activities though.

We met a few new people since I've been here. We taught Amanda yesterday, a young mother. She was so excited about everything we taught and she would ask about things before we had taught it. Everything clicked for her. Right as we were leaving her husband pulled up. I'm always nervous about that, but I think he's going to be receptive to it too. We're teaching her again tomorrow and we're excited.

We also got a member referral for a girl named Kim. She grew up Jewish but recently converted to Christianity. She has 18 month old twins and is a single mother—a really hard life. She was hesitant to meet with us at first because she feels overwhelmed trying to understand Jesus Christ already and didn't want one more thing. I explained that we would only be helping her understand Christ and would start at the very basics. She agreed so we are meeting with her tomorrow.

As far as the ending of life in Ravenna—we left it on a good foot. Dave & Hannah did come to church and enjoyed it. They could only stay for sacrament meeting, but want to come back when he has work off. He also went to his mass on Christmas day and noticed something different than in our church. Dave is starting to get it. He wrote me a letter before I left and said he didn't know why we stopped at his house but he is grateful for the difference in his life. He never read the scriptures before but he enjoys reading the Book of Mormon and recognized there is something in it for him.

The Weavers are the same too—still excited for the gospel. The bishop has met with both of them and even gave Billie a tour of the baptismal font. They are a great family.

Jon & Kathy are still working towards their baptism this month. We were wanting them to stay for all of the meeting first so there might be some change.

That's all for now, I wanted to send a few pics if I have time.

Love you all,
Sister Salisbury